NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Completes Its First, And Closest, Jupiter Flyby
NASA’s Juno spacecraft recently successfully completed the first
of its 36 orbits of Jupiter. At the closest point in its orbit around the gas
giant, Juno flew at a distance of just 2,600 miles above Jupiter’s atmosphere.
This flyby, during which the spacecraft was traveling at a breakneck speed of
130,000 miles per hour, is the closest Juno will get to Jupiter during its
prime mission.
Background:
Juno was launched in August 2011 and traversed nearly 2 billion
miles of space to reach Jupiter. The spacecraft, named after the Roman god
Jupiter’s wife, will spend the better part of the next year-and-half trying to peer
through the thick clouds surrounding the massive gas giant.
- The primary goals of the $1.1 billion mission are to find out whether Jupiter has a solid core, and whether there is water in the planet’s atmosphere — something that may not only provide vital clues to how the planet formed and evolved, but also to how the solar system we live in came into existence.
- At the end of its mission, Juno will dive into Jupiter’s atmosphere and burn up — a “deorbit” maneuver that is necessary to ensure that it does not crash into and contaminate the Jovian moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
