Juno Probe To Get First Up-Close Look At Jupiter On Saturday

NASA's Juno spacecraft will get its first up-close view at Jupiter this Saturday. Space.com reports: "At 8:51 a.m. EDT (1251 GMT) on Saturday (Aug. 27), Juno will zoom within 2,600 miles (4,000 kilometers) of Jupiter's cloud tops -- closer than the probe is scheduled to come during its entire mission, NASA officials said. And Juno will have all of its science instruments during Saturday's flyby. This was not the case during the spacecraft's only previous close approach to Jupiter, which occurred July 4 when Juno arrived in orbit around the giant planet. During Saturday's close pass, all eight of Juno's science instruments will be collecting data, and the probe's visible-light imager, known as JunoCam, will take close-up photos." You can also look forward to Venus-Jupiter Conjunction 2016, an event happening on August 27 where Venus and Jupiter's respective orbits will bring the two planets the closest that they'll be to each other until 2065. The two planets will be positioned roughly five degrees above the Western horizon on August 27.

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[hcs_$reboot]

You're obviously confusing with this Juno [imdb.com].

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[Hylandr]

You're obviously feeling a little 'flat' today.

Re: Thanks again Slashdot editors

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalized for proper name cardinality.

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[hcs_$reboot]

Actually I thank them: for once we have both units, km and miles, and even GMT time (it's actually UTC, but, hey, let's not be too pedantic this time)

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[asylumx]

They didn't mention the time because it depends where you are located. The article says the planets will be ~5 deg above horizon AT SUNSET and of course the sun sets at a different time depending where you are on the planet. It would have been nice if the summary had mentioned timing with the sunset, though.

Also, Western is capitalized because it is the proper name of a direction.

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[sysrammer]

Seems to me that there are plenty of sites on the internet for uneducated people. It may be that many of those populating /. nowadays would be better served by those other sites.

4,000 km

[hcs_$reboot]

4,000 km is extremely close! Voyager 1's closest flyby was 349,000 km (Voyager 2 was 570,000 km). Sounds promising...

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[Solandri]

They should have Juno transmit "YEEEEEHAAAAA!!!! [pinimg.com]" during closest approach.

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[rossdee]

It took advantage of a tail wind so it got closer thn it was expected to

Closer than scheduled?

[Dan East]

Juno will zoom within 2,600 miles (4,000 kilometers) of Jupiter's cloud tops -- closer than the probe is scheduled to come during its entire mission

Which makes it sound like it's not supposed to come that close to Jupiter. Obviously it is scheduled to come that close to Jupiter - the actual article says it's the "closest" it will come, not "closer" than it is scheduled to.

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[sysrammer]

Thank you. I was surprised when I saw so few comments to this article. Then I started reading them and started to see why. Reading comprehension is just as "fail" today as is writing ability. I had zero problem interpreting the sentences, interpolating the necessary information to understand what is by definition a small, incomplete summary of an incredibly complex set of projects and tasks.

All these worlds are yours...

[zawarski]

...except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace.