Juno: Piercing Jupiter’s Clouds | Out There | The New York Times

four-and-a-half billion years ago an enormous cloud of gas and dust collapsed most of it ignited in a glowing ball from a halo debris a second ball condensed a striped world of gas too small to form a star jupiter lord of the solar system compared to yet the asteroids and other planets are an afterthought but what lurks beneath Jupiter's primordial clouds in the summer of 2011 the Juno spacecraft set out to find an answer a hexagonal spacecraft was lifted to the heavens put into a spin and released Juno is powered by giant solar panels they unfurled in darkness and then caught the light of dawn Juno spent two years looping through the inner solar system then slingshotted past earth its cameras captured a flickering glimpse of a blue planet dotted with clouds junot arced outward past dusty mars slowly catching up with jupiter along the way it became the most distant solar-powered spacecraft drinking in the fading sunlight on the fourth of July 2016 Juno will arrive at Jupiter falling toward the planet at over 40 miles per second one of the fastest objects ever made by humans Juno will fire its main engine to slow down and to be captured by the planet's gravity in its long elliptical orbit Juno will buzz past Jupiter every 14 days scanning slices of the planet from pole to mottled pole gradually weaving a net of observations the spinning spacecraft will pirouette only 3,000 miles above Jupiter's clouds ducking under punishing bands of radiation that circle the planet a storm of charged particles that would fry a normal spacecraft Juno is most sensitive electronics are shielded in a thick titanium vault even so some of its instruments will not survive more than a handful of orbits the same powers that endanger Juno provide lots of fireworks for it to see Jupiter's intense magnetic field forms swirling Aurora's the brightest in the solar system halos of magnetic fire a thousand times larger than Earth's Northern Lights beneath its giant storms and banded clouds Jupiter holds clues to the birth of the solar system after 37 orbits Juno will bid earth farewell the spacecraft will make one final approach skidding close to Jupiter's North Pole and then burning up in the atmosphere after a journey of two billion miles two tons of machinery and electronics would dissolve into the swirling cloud stuff from which we all came you

Channel: The New York Times

Views: 732,858

Keywords: The New York Times, NY Times, NYT, Times Video, nytimes.com, news, newspaper, feature, reporting, Juna, Jupiter, Space, Space Exploration, Outer Space, Titan, Jupiter's Clouds, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Galileo, Gas Planets, Planets, Planetary Exploration, Planet's Moons, Moons, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Saturn, Cassini, Europa

Id: NNHfoNIiZ8Y

Length: 4min 3sec (243 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 28 2016