This visual timeline shows our evolving view of Jupiter and some of the key milestones leading up to one of the most ambitious Jupiter missions yet: Juno.
This visual timeline shows our evolving view of Jupiter and some of the key milestones leading up to one of the most ambitious Jupiter missions yet: Juno. NASA television coverage of the event begins at 10:30 pm US Eastern time. The solar-powered spacecraft is equipped with a suite of instruments to learn about how Jupiter formed, and a radiation vault to protect the electronics from massive doses of radiation near the gas giant, reaching 1,000 times the lethal level for a human.
Jupiter is the 5th planet from the sun. Its atmosphere is made up of H and He, and it’s known for its Great Red Spot, a storm bigger than Earth that has been raging for hundreds of years.
Scientists hope to find out more about how much water Jupiter holds and the makeup of its core, in order to figure out how the planet—and others in the neighborhood including Earth—formed billions of years ago.
The spacecraft is currently approaching Jupiter at a speed of more than 130,000 miles per hour. This evening, Juno will perform a series of engine burns for about a half hour to slow the spacecraft by about 1,212 miles per hour, enough for Jupiter to capture Juno into its orbit. The orbit insertion should be complete at around 12 am Eastern time July 5 (0400 GMT). The mission aims to circle the planet 37 times before finally making a death plunge in 2018, to prevent the spacecraft from causing any damage to any of Jupiter’s icy moons, which NASA hopes to explore one day for signs of life.
Juno, built to withstand intense radiation environments has been headed for Jupiter since 2011 to study the gas giant’s atmosphere, aurora, gravity and magnetic field. NASA studies space radiation to better protect spacecraft as they travel through space, as well as to understand how this space environment influences planetary evolution. After Jupiter orbit insertion on July 4, 2016, Juno will have the chance to study one of the most intense radiation environments in our solar system.
Here’s how NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter became the most distant solar-powered explorer and influenced the future of space exploration powered by the sun.
Timeline expanded….
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/infographic.view.php?id=11362&linkId=26178785
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-nasa-juno-orbit-jupiter.htmljCp
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