JULY 2017 | MANE ENGINEERING | 7
NEW JUPITER
Juno
uncovers
new
information
about the
gas giant
he first set of scientific results from the Juno Mission have been released by NASA and it's changing the way we think about Jupiter, the largest planet in our
solar system. The Juno spacecraft was set off to Jupiter back in 2011 and reached the gas giant in 2016 and is orbiting the planet collecting data on gravity, magnetic fields, thermal radiation, infrared waves, and other relevant data. “We are excited to share these early discoveries, which help us better understand what makes Jupiter so fascinating,” said Diane Brown, Juno program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
New images of the planet show Earth-sized storms at both poles that are densely clustered and rubbing together. The magnetic field, which was believed to be five times as powerful as Earth's may actually be ten times as Earths most powerful magnetic field. We are learning that the planet is far more complex than previously thought.
“We knew, going in, that Jupiter would throw us some curves,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "There is so much going on here that we didn’t expect that we have had to take a step back and begin to rethink of this as a whole new Jupiter.”
Juno continues to orbit Jupiter and will trave closer to capture more photos and data every 53 days. It will explore Jupiter until February 2018 at which point the probe will come crashing down into the planet. The next flyby of the planet will take Juno directly over the Great Red Spot on July 11th and will hopefully give us a deeper understanding of the planet's largest storm. ■
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