Juno Mission
By: Ali Karani, Randall Smith, Kevin Roach, Nathan Hume, Grant Peterre, and Alicia Gresla
General Description
The Juno mission, part of NASA's New Frontiers program, consists of a spacecraft designed to explore the formation and structure of the planet Jupiter. The mission tis fittingly named afterthe Roman goddess Juno, the sister and wife of the Roman god Jupiter. The Juno spacecraft is equipped with state-of-the art instruments that are designed to study planet's composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. The mission is planned to launch in August of 2011. After two years, the spacecraft will perform a gravity assisted speed boost from the Earth on its way to Jupiter. Arriving in 2016, it will enter near Jupiter's pole and enter its orbit. It will immediately begin using infrared and microwave instruments to collect data. The spacecraft will stop collecting data in 2018.
Scientific Objectives
In Astronomy, results from one study can often to lead to accurate observations and discoveries in other fields. Take for example the Sun. By scientist investigating the formation and make-up of the center of our solar system, we have discovered much about
star formation that takes place across the entire universe.
If scientist can understand Jupiter better, they will be better able to understand planets like Jupiter in other solar systems and help us understand the creation of our own solar system. The Juno Mission will try and focus on finding out more information on
Jupiter’s origin, atmosphere, magnetosphere, and interior.
From the mission scientist will be able to understand the core mass better. From this information scientist can look and see if it is accurate with theories about the formation of the solar system. The mission will find out the ratio of oxygen to hydrogen and
find out how much water is on Jupiter. It will find out data on the magnetic field structures of the planet. Juno will also allow scientist for the first time to see past depths of 100 bars for the first time. This will allow them to map atmospheric conditions,
cloud opacity, and other dynamics of Jupiter’s atmosphere that they never could before. From this mission scientist also hope to better understand the aurora of Jupiter, a phenomenon in our solar system. By studying the charged particles in the magnetosphere
they believe that they can to this.
From these findings scientist can find out vital data on the origin of our solar system, and more accurately predict the origins of surrounding galaxies that have planets with similar characteristics of Jupiter.
The Pioneer 11 spacecraft from 1973
Background of Jupiter Missions Previous to Juno
In April of 1973 the United States launched Pioneer 11, the first mission with Jupiter as its destination. The objective of Pioneer 11 was to take pictures of Jupiter, and Jupiter’s Great Red Spot upon arrival in September of 1979. The United States also launched Voyager 1 in September of 1977 to obtain pictures and photographs of many different moons of Jupiter. Voyager 2, also launched in 1977 by the United States, discovered that the Great Red Spot was actually a large storm on Jupiter. Voyager 2 also discovered active volcanism on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. The Galileo orbiter/probe was launched in a joint effort by the United States and Europe in October of 1989. In December of 1995, the probe successfully descended into Jupiter’s atmosphere. The orbiter succeeded in entering Jupiter’s orbit, where even today it remains, observing the entire Jupiter system.
Technological devices, Spacecraft
For the purposes of probing Jupiter’s structure, poles, auroral zones, interior composition, and areas essential to the acquisition of information about the evolution and origin of the largest planet within our Solar System, the Juno Mission, part of NASA’s
New Frontiers Program, which as stated previously, will launch in August 2011, will utilize several technological devices in order to achieve such results for the mission.
With the impending mission only a year and eight months away, NASA’s New Frontiers Program has selected a spacecraft with a specific design to increase the capabilities of the other devices as to purport the executive tasks of the mission. Such a spacecraft is described by the NASA website as being “a spinning, solar-powered spacecraft”. It will orbit Jupiter in an elliptical manner as to circumvent the highly radioactive regions of the planet. The specifications of the spacecraft being spinning and solar-powered have their own purposes: to stabilize the craft’s pointing and to minimize the need of power, as Jupiter receives a significantly less amount of sunlight than the terrestrial planets. Seen below, an image provided by the NASA Juno Mission website details not only the spacecraft, but also the various devices on the spacecraft itself. Some of the said instruments are the following:
One particular instrument is deemed the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper or, JIRAM for short. The JIRAM is an instrument located within the instrument suite of the Juno spacecraft, which according to a published special paper entitled “JIRAM, the Image Spectrometer in the Near Infrared on Board the Juno Mission to Jupiter” by Adriani et al in Astrobiology, “will explore the dynamics and the chemistry of Jupiter’s auroral regions by high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy. It will also analyze jovian hot spots to determine their vertical structure and infer possible mechanisms for their formation”. The instrument includes a telescope used to capture infrared images and act as a spectrometer.
Conclusion
From the information provided above, it is seemingly apparent that by conducting the Juno Mission, astronomers and other scientific researchers will be able to utilize their discoveries on Jupiter to learn more about our own solar system and about the conditions and formations of other galaxies, specifically other gas planets. Though this mission has yet to occur, it is clearthe Juno mission will be beneficial to astronomical research and to the general understanding of what lies outside our own Earthly reach.
For more information on the Juno Mission, visit these websites:
http://newfrontiers.nasa.gov/missions_juno.html
Sources used in this website include:
JIRAM, the Image Spectrometer in the Near Infrared on Board the Juno Mission to Jupiter pdf document from http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2007.01
http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/86/i48/html/8648govc5.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/spacecraft/index.html
The Juno NewFrontiers mission pdf document from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V1N-4NN1TC0-1&_user=2518055&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F2007&_alid=1128031845&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5679&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=215&_acct=C000057738&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=2518055&md5=41fbfcfbf29f0adf5a89898480d4bf65
http://newfrontiers.nasa.gov/missions_juno.html
http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/preslectures/vanallen92/images/FIGURE_6.jpg
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211_fall2002.web.dir/Melissa_Smith/Pictures/Bigjupiter.jpg
