NASA said it received a signal from the other side of the solar system, 870 million kilometers distance, confirming that the Juno spacecraft began orbiting Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
“Welcome to Jupiter!” read on screens in the mission control Centre at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA in Pasadena, California.
the Juno team cheered and hugged each other.
“This is phenomenal,” said Geoff Yoder, interim manager . the Science Mission Directorate at NASA
the probe had to make a difficult maneuver to slow down enough to enter orbit: its main engine fired for 35 minutes, which was reduced speed of the ship at about 1,950 kilometers per hour (542 meters per second).
“NASA did it again,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator for the mission.
“Here we are, we’re in orbit. Conquered Jupiter “.
” Juno used tones to sing and was a melody of perfection, “said Rick Nybakken, manager of Juno project, referring to the audio signal that the probe issued to indicate that was in orbit .
they released Juno nearly five years ago with the mission to study the composition and evolution of Jupiter. it is the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter after Galileo. Galileo was deliberately crashed into Jupiter September 21, 2003 in order to protect one of their discoveries. a possible ocean within Europa, one of Jupiter’s satellites
“preliminary analyzes indicate that the ship performs well,” he said Guy Beutelschies, director of interplanetary missions Lockheed Martin Space Systems, the company that built it.
Steve Levin, a scientist at Juno project, spoke to relight the instruments of the probe after the offerred in preparation for the complicated maneuver to enter orbit.
“what I really crave is watching closely to Jupiter,” he said.
a gas giant
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and is a huge ball of gas, eleven times wider than Earth and a mass 300 times that of our planet.
researchers believe that was the first planet was formed and containing clues about the evolution of the solar system.
ships have already been sent to Jupiter. However, scientists remain baffled with the gas giant.
What happens under the dense clouds of Jupiter? Do you have a solid core? How much water contains its atmosphere? How deep
are the colorful bands and the mysterious giant red spot?Juno help answer these questions by analyzing the interior of Jupiter. The spacecraft will orbit the poles and try to avoid the most dangerous planet’s radiation belts. To protect themselves from radiation, Juno has an electronic compartment covered.
In a press conference held after the successful arrival of the probe to Jupiter’s orbit, NASA projected a decision video which sees Juno in its approach to the moons of Jupiter and captured for the first time the movement of objects around a celestial body.
“in the entire history had never seen really the movement of a celestial body against another, “Bolton told CNN; Bolton said Jupiter and its moons are “a solar system in miniature”.
“There are several moons orbiting Jupiter and each traveling at a different speed depending on its distance from the planet. This is the king our solar system and his disciples travel around. it is very significant, we can finally see real video, real images, this movement that until now only had been able to imagine. “
a rotating probe
Juno is a robotic probe rotating the width of a basketball court.
will orbit Jupiter 37 times over 20 months and will come down to about 4,100 kilometers above the thick clouds of the planet.
with the seven scientific instruments are on board Jupiter’s auroras will be studied and will assist scientists to better understand the origins, structure, atmosphere and the magnetosphere of the planet.
on board there is also a color camera, called JunoCam, with which “spectacular approaches and color images” of Jupiter will be taken, according to NASA. The space agency has asked the public to help decide where to point the camera.
On board also they travel Juno three dolls Lego nearly four centimeters long. One looks like Galileo Galilei, the scientist who discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter. The other two represent the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno. The included to inspire children to study science and math.
The main fuselage of Juno is 3.5 meters high and diameter. But when they open their three solar panels, its size reaches 20 meters. In comparison, a basketball court NBA is 15.2 meters wide and 28.6 meters long.
Jupiter was 716 million kilometers from Earth when it launched Juno from Cape Canaveral, 5 August 2011. But the probe has traveled a total distance of 2,800 million kilometers to reach the gaseous planet flying over the Earth to pick up speed.
“After a journey of 2.736 million kilometers, we reached our ignition point about a second before a goal that was barely tens of kilometers long, “Nybakken said. “The Juno probe is well behaved well tonight.”
The Juno mission will end on February 20, 2018, when it is expected to crash into Jupiter Juno.
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