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LequteMan
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US space agency, NASA, has finally put a probe into Jupiter's orbit five years after the probe took off from earth.
The Juno satellite had to fire its main engine to slow its approach to the planet and get caught by its gravity.
The solar-powered spacecraft had to squeeze through a narrow band, skimming Jupiter’s surface, to avoid the worst of both its radiation belt and its dangerous dust rings.
Following the completion of Juno's insertion into Jupiter's orbit, jubilant scientists fronted a press conference, and tore up a “contingency communication strategy” they said they prepared in case things went wrong.
Now the spacecraft will orbit the planet once every 53 days until October 14, when it will shift to a tighter 14-day orbit. And after about 20 months of learning everything it can about Jupiter’s interior and its atmosphere, it will eventually succumb to the harsh environment and plunge into the planet’s crushing centre.
Juno will measure the composition, temperature, motion and other properties of Jupiter.
It will determine the abundance of oxygen at the planet, which will be bound up in its water, and also determine whether it has a solid core of if its gases go all the way down to the centre in an ever more compressed state.
It will also look for the deep swirling sea of liquid metallic hydrogen that theory suggests is the driver behind Jupiter's immense magnetic field and its spectacular auroras.
The Juno satellite had to fire its main engine to slow its approach to the planet and get caught by its gravity.
The solar-powered spacecraft had to squeeze through a narrow band, skimming Jupiter’s surface, to avoid the worst of both its radiation belt and its dangerous dust rings.
Following the completion of Juno's insertion into Jupiter's orbit, jubilant scientists fronted a press conference, and tore up a “contingency communication strategy” they said they prepared in case things went wrong.
Now the spacecraft will orbit the planet once every 53 days until October 14, when it will shift to a tighter 14-day orbit. And after about 20 months of learning everything it can about Jupiter’s interior and its atmosphere, it will eventually succumb to the harsh environment and plunge into the planet’s crushing centre.
Juno will measure the composition, temperature, motion and other properties of Jupiter.
It will determine the abundance of oxygen at the planet, which will be bound up in its water, and also determine whether it has a solid core of if its gases go all the way down to the centre in an ever more compressed state.
It will also look for the deep swirling sea of liquid metallic hydrogen that theory suggests is the driver behind Jupiter's immense magnetic field and its spectacular auroras.
