Space
Juno Spacecraft Completes Closest Encounter With Gas Giant Jupiter
Pauline Angela Quiambao
First Posted: Aug 29, 2016 07:33 AM EDT
NASA's Juno probe successfully soared 2,600 miles above Jupiter, making a record-breaking encounter to the biggest planet in the Solar System. Scientists were happy that the spacecraft skimmed the clouds of Jupiter at the speed of 130,000 mph last Saturday, while all its nine instruments were activated to record the phenomenon.
The space agency gladly announced the success of the spacecraft's closest flyby on Twitter, which happened right as they expected it to be. But the spacecraft is schedule complete another 35 passes after this one over the next 18 months, as reported by The Guardian.
"Early post-fly-by telemetry indicates that everything worked as planned and Juno is firing on all cylinders," said Juno's Project Manager Rick Nybakken at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Mission controllers are now expecting to receive stunning images and scientific data over the next couple of weeks. According to Juno's mission principal investigator Scott Bolton of Southwest Research Institute, "We are getting some intriguing early data returns as we speak."
"It will take days for all the data to be downlinked, and even more to begin to comprehend what Juno and Jupiter are trying to tell us. This is our first opportunity to really take a close-up look at the king of our solar system and begin to figure out how he works," he added.
They have high hopes that they JunoCam captured stunning images. And it will be the first of the data the team will receive in a couple of days.
The first closest approach made by another spacecraft was in 1974 by NASA' Pioneer 11 at a distance of 27,000 miles. Other spacecrafts that aimed to visit the planet and its moons was Galileo from 1995 to 2003 and successfully entered the gas giant's orbit.
"We are in an orbit nobody has ever been in before, and these images give us a whole new perspective on this gas-giant world," said Bolton in NASA's official statement.
The Juno spacecraft was launched on August 5, 2011 by an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral in Florida. It took the spacecraft five years to enter Jupiter's orbit and make it closest flyby. The probe is scheduled to end its mission in the next 20 months and will be crashed on to Jupiter. Scientists are looking forward to discovering the secrets of the planets mainly its composition, magnetic fields, gravity, north and south poles and the undetermined source of its 384-mph winds.
See Now:
NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone
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First Posted: Aug 29, 2016 07:33 AM EDT
NASA's Juno probe successfully soared 2,600 miles above Jupiter, making a record-breaking encounter to the biggest planet in the Solar System. Scientists were happy that the spacecraft skimmed the clouds of Jupiter at the speed of 130,000 mph last Saturday, while all its nine instruments were activated to record the phenomenon.
The space agency gladly announced the success of the spacecraft's closest flyby on Twitter, which happened right as they expected it to be. But the spacecraft is schedule complete another 35 passes after this one over the next 18 months, as reported by The Guardian.
"Early post-fly-by telemetry indicates that everything worked as planned and Juno is firing on all cylinders," said Juno's Project Manager Rick Nybakken at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Mission controllers are now expecting to receive stunning images and scientific data over the next couple of weeks. According to Juno's mission principal investigator Scott Bolton of Southwest Research Institute, "We are getting some intriguing early data returns as we speak."
"It will take days for all the data to be downlinked, and even more to begin to comprehend what Juno and Jupiter are trying to tell us. This is our first opportunity to really take a close-up look at the king of our solar system and begin to figure out how he works," he added.
They have high hopes that they JunoCam captured stunning images. And it will be the first of the data the team will receive in a couple of days.
The first closest approach made by another spacecraft was in 1974 by NASA' Pioneer 11 at a distance of 27,000 miles. Other spacecrafts that aimed to visit the planet and its moons was Galileo from 1995 to 2003 and successfully entered the gas giant's orbit.
"We are in an orbit nobody has ever been in before, and these images give us a whole new perspective on this gas-giant world," said Bolton in NASA's official statement.
The Juno spacecraft was launched on August 5, 2011 by an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral in Florida. It took the spacecraft five years to enter Jupiter's orbit and make it closest flyby. The probe is scheduled to end its mission in the next 20 months and will be crashed on to Jupiter. Scientists are looking forward to discovering the secrets of the planets mainly its composition, magnetic fields, gravity, north and south poles and the undetermined source of its 384-mph winds.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone