Posted on 06/27/2016 8:44:26 PM PDT by BenLurkin
...July 4, Juno must fire its main engine for 35 minutes.
... will place NASAs robotic explorer into a polar orbit around the gas giant.
The approach over the north pole is unlike earlier probes that approached from much lower latitudes nearer the equatorial zone, and thus provide a perspective unlike any other.
...
... Juno will fly within 2,900 miles (4,667 kilometers) of the Jovian cloud tops.
All instruments except those critical for the JOI insertion burn on July 4, will be tuned off on June 29. That includes shutting down Junocam.
If it doesnt help us get into orbit, it is shut down, said Scott Bolton, Junos principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
That is how critical this rocket burn is. And while we will not be getting images as we make our final approach to the planet, we have some interesting pictures of what Jupiter and its moons look like from five-plus million miles away.
During a 20 month long science mission entailing 37 orbits lasting 11 days each the probe will plunge to within about 3000 miles of the turbulent cloud tops and collect unprecedented new data that will unveil the hidden inner secrets of Jupiters origin and evolution.
Jupiter is the Rosetta Stone of our solar system, says Bolton. It is by far the oldest planet, contains more material than all the other planets, asteroids and comets combined and carries deep inside it the story of not only the solar system but of us. Juno is going there as our emissary to interpret what Jupiter has to say.
During the orbits, Juno will probe beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and study its auroras to learn more about the planets origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Arent you still advising on matters of orbital insertion?
can the next one carry Obama?
Cool! I didn’t know about this one.
Looking forward to keeping up with it and seeing the images it sends back.
Signals traveling at the speed of light take 10 minutes to reach Earth.
I guess Universe Today is getting its astronomy from the writers of Star Wars, where a parsec is a unit of time.
Ya know, if we’d stop paying people to breed we might be close to REAL interplanetary travel by now.
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