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Space NASA

NASA's Juno Spacecraft Braves Jupiter Radiation For a 4th of July Arrival (blastingnews.com) 74

Posted by EditorDavid from the final-frontier dept.
MarkWhittington writes: July 4, if all goes well, will be an occasion for celebration at NASA as the Juno spacecraft, after a nearly five-year voyage, will go into orbit around Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. Juno will spend its time in a zone of intense radiation, against which it has been armored, in an effort to ferret out Jupiter's secrets. By so doing, NASA hopes to gain insights into the origin of the solar system as well as gaining more knowledge of the gas giant, comprised mostly of hydrogen and helium with trace elements of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur.
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NASA's Juno Spacecraft Braves Jupiter Radiation For a 4th of July Arrival More

NASA's Juno Spacecraft Braves Jupiter Radiation For a 4th of July Arrival

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  • CNN has photos (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of glowing auroras over Jupiter just days before NASA's new Juno spaceship arrives to orbit the gas giant. "These auroras are very dramatic and among the most active I have ever seen," said Jonathan Nichols from the University of Leicester, UK, and principal investigator of the study.

    "It almost seems as if Jupiter is throwing a fireworks party for the imminent arrival of Juno,..

    http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/01/... [cnn.com]

  • If it is composed mainly of Hydrogen and Helium, why is it considered a planet?

    • Re:Is Jupiter a planet? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Sunday July 03, 2016 @10:53AM (#52438671) Homepage Journal

      If politicians are composed mainly of hot air, why are they considered humans?

    • Re:Is Jupiter a planet? (Score:5, Informative)

      by karniv0re ( 746499 ) on Sunday July 03, 2016 @11:02AM (#52438705) Journal
      I've always wondered the same thing, so I googled "Can you stand on Jupiter?" Condensed version: at the core is a (??) solid rock and some other stuff, and gasses are so dense and hot, they act more like a liquid. Furthermore, it meets the requirements of a planet; 1. It orbits the Sun 2. It has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape) 3. It has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit (credit: http://www.city-data.com/forum... [city-data.com])

      • I've always wondered the same thing, so I googled "Can you stand on Jupiter?"

        You might also enjoy Jupiter Submarine [xkcd.com] and Jupiter Descending [xkcd.com].

      • Though I personally like the "hydrostatic equilibrium" phrase for defining a planet (which would leave the Sun with dozens if not hundreds of planets), it's not part of the definition. In practice, the "clear the neighbourhood" definition almost requires that the object is large enough to have been classically considered a planet. The edge cases are 1 Ceres and 4 Vesta - nearly spherical asteroids (whereas 2 Pallas, smaller than 4 Vesta, is considerably less spherical) but nowhere near having "cleared their

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Only Earth is a planet! Boot the rest out and build a wall, a yuuuuge beautiful wall. I kind of like Uranus though; its fine, wispy clouds remind me of my great hair.

    • Because it is not a star itself (it isn't in thermal equilibrium between interior fusion and external heat loss), it is in orbit around a star, and there is nothing in it's orbit which could possibly eject it from the orbit around it's star (it is, in the words of the infamous "Pluto Killer" definition, it has gravitationally cleared it's orbit).

      You asked a question and you got an answer.

      • (it is, in the words of the infamous "Pluto Killer" definition, it has gravitationally cleared it's orbit).

        Has it?

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        • What interaction scenario between Jupiter and one - or all - of it's Trojans would result in Jupiter being ejected from the Solar system?

          The point of the "clearing it's neighbourhood" part of the definition is not that every last speck of dust is removed from the orbital vicinity (however you define the region around the line of the orbit - and it's chaotic past and future), but that the planet is capable of scattering or accreting anything in in it's orbit, rather than being scattered by anything in it's

          • The point being made is that the definition is silly, nothing has cleared its orbit, not even Jupiter the giant of the solar system. So if the definition is something about clearing its orbit of anything that could possibly eject it, that isn't the definition I have ever heard.

            https://www.iau.org/public/the... [iau.org]

            Even the IAU definition just says cleared its orbit. My guess is that by that definition, and the part about orbiting the sun, there are no planets. It is a silly distinction, and unless the written

            • So if the definition is something about clearing its orbit of anything that could possibly eject it, that isn't the definition I have ever heard.

              That's because you're now near the cutting edge of science. This is a taxonomy for a continuous natural variable. There isn't an obvious criterion for separation (such as the "hydrogen fusion" criterion for distinguishing between a brown dwarf and a star - that's a natural binary criterion), but the IAU people were trying to find a definition which distinguishes be

              • Thank you for a very informing post. As the OP for this thread, I do think there is more to the discussion that we usually see. I've actually bookmarked your comment here, so I can read those reports you mention, as far as I can. I'm not a scientist, I'm a computer tech, so I'm sure much will be beyond me.

                My contention with the demotion of Pluto isn't that a group of scientists have (again) changed a long standing definition, and I simply don't like change. My issue was how the vote was done. A group with a

                • Well, some points to consider in your reading : (1) what was this "long standing" "pre-existing" definition of a planet which was cast into the roadside mud? ; (2) how long had the problem of Pluto been discussed in "the literature" (I've seen books throwing a stark light on it by plotting pre-1979 mass estimates on a logarithmic scale -Pluto's mass as measured by the Pluto-Charon couple, where the actual mass of Pluto-Charon is three orders of magnitude lower than the first (small) estimates. (IIRC, Earth
            • That last reference I gave (Russell) does make some interesting points. The result of the current definition is that, if transposed from it's present orbit to Pluto's orbit (or any orbit with the same semi-major axis as Pluto's orbit), the Earth would cease to be a planet, and become a "dwarf planet", despite the absence of calorie-controlled diets. How undesirable this is, is a matter of taste. But it's certainly a point to consider in a taxonomy. If you move a specimen of Cannabis sativa from Boston MA to
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Jupiter is the largest planet? Gosh, had that not been in the sentence none of us would ever have figured that out. This is news for nerds, not news for planettists. Thank you, intrepid editors, for understanding and saving me from confusion!

      You're complaining that the editors got something 100% right? I mean, they've got some even simpler stuff utterly wrong before. I mean, look at the Self-Driving Tesla Owners Share Videos of Reckless Driving story: somehow, a Volvo engineer became a Volvo driver!

      • Also, its not a self driving car if its only an assistance system. I mean, the term "self-driving" should only be used for fully autonomous vehicles, otherwise every automobile is "self driving", because it needs no horses.

      • You're complaining that the editors got something 100% right? I mean, they've got some even simpler stuff utterly wrong before. I mean, look at the Self-Driving Tesla Owners Share Videos of Reckless Driving story: somehow, a Volvo engineer became a Volvo driver!

        Well, to be honest, there's a good chance that the Volvo engineer DOES drive a Volvo, so...

  • lets all celebrate! Next year on july 4th we will be invaded by them! (by a larger force obviously).

  • that means jupiter could be the solar system's gas station someday

  • Can't wait (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vikingpower ( 768921 ) on Sunday July 03, 2016 @11:57AM (#52438973) Homepage Journal

    for the images sent back by JunoCam. It's actually not one of the scientific instruments; NASA says it is rather there for outreach to the public at large. But still - imagine what eye-wateringly beautiful images of Jupiter's cloud tops we may get. Moreover, think of a "pale blue dot" shot through Jovian wisps. I remember being a teenage boy, much engrossed with astronomy (I had my own telescope, bought on "credit on my pocket money"), when the first Voyager images came in. They were printed in a paper magazine - there was no internet back in those times. The images nailed me down on my seat for many, many hours. And now... Juno. Wow. Glad to be alive in these times!

    • Hmm I dunno .. seeing the pics of Earth clouds it took from just 400 miles away during its Earth flyby I didn't get much hope for seeing anything new or spectacular in Jupiter.

  • What happens if the nozzles fail to work and it keeps going? Will it get a second chance, like Japan's Venus probe?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      According to this article [popularmechanics.com] it has to get it right the first time, and will go into a useless solar orbit or smash into Jupiter if the breaking maneuver fails. There's very little margin for error.

      It does have restart logic such that if the Jupiter radiation causes the engines to stop or computer to crash, it has auto-restart mechanisms in place to try to finish the job.

  • I mean weren't we very clearly told not to go there?

  • Have a link (Score:3)

    by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Sunday July 03, 2016 @06:16PM (#52440559)
    To the real deal. Not some shiity site that makes you answer surveys to read content. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_p... [nasa.gov]

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