All of humanity triumphed last week, on July 4, 2016, when Juno, a spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on August 5, 2011, crossed the boundary of planet Jupiter’s formidable magnetic field and slipped into orbit around the great gas planet.
The probe traveled 540 million miles at the fastest speed ever achieved by a human-made object, more than 165,000 miles per hour and, also a first for a spacecraft, it is powered by the sun.
Located in the outer solar system, Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun. It is more massive than double the sum of all of the planets in our solar system combined.
In the spirit of scientific inquiry into the nature of Jupiter, and the appeal of an element of human interest, the mission name, Juno, is apt. The spacecraft’s name comes from Greco-Roman mythology. Wikipedia reports, “The god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, but his wife, the goddess Juno, was able to peer through the clouds and see Jupiter’s true nature.”
Credit: NASA_JPL/Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
Beginning with two NASA documents – one visual, one auditory – each of us can go out there with Juno to experience life-changing, history-making moments in time. See the first, a very short time-lapse movie of Jupiter’s moons in motion around Jupiter taken by Juno on its way to Jupiter, accompanied by an awe-inspiring soundtrack by Vengelis, the composer of numerous celebrated scores, including the soundtrack for Chariots of Fire. The filming began on June 12 when Juno was 10 million miles from Jupiter and ended on June 29, 3 million miles distant.
The second is a sound recording best described by EarthSky.org in a July 5 post. Juno crossed the boundary into Jupiter’s immense magnetic field on June 24, 2016. The craft’s Waves instrument recorded the encounter with the bow shock over the course of about two hours. Bow shock – analogous to a sonic boom on Earth – is where the supersonic solar wind is heated and slowed by Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Want to hear the boom? Click here.
You won’t be able to spot Juno, but do look for Jupiter, the brightest star-like celestial object shining above the western horizon in the Earth’s evening sky.
Resources:
http://www.space.com/33348-jupiter-moon-s-orbital-dance-humans-have-never-seen-this-video.html
Hear the sound recorded as Juno crossed the boundary into Jupiter’s magnetic field on June 24, 2016
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-juno-spacecraft-enters-jupiters-magnetic-field
Links to all NASA Juno mission resources
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html
Dramatic, Star Wars-style movie trailer introduction to Juno mission
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1429
Brief overview reporting, including links to movie trailer and sound recording
http://www.space.com/33318-voyage-of-time-the-imax-experience-narrated-by-brad-pitt-trailer.html
Mission Juno – Documentary on Jupiter and NASA’s Juno probe arriving at Jupiter in July 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka6OERznXh4
Science and history of Jupiter
http://www.space.com/7-jupiter-largest-planet-solar-system.html
Ride onboard the Juno spacecraft in real time:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/where Using NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System and simulated data from the Juno flight team you can ride onboard the Juno spacecraft in real-time at any moment during the entire mission. NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System program is a Web-based tool to journey with NASA’s spacecraft through the solar system. The experience is available on a Mac or PC by downloading NASA’s Eyes. NASA’s Eyes interactives require a one-time download of the app. For more information on the Eyes on Juno module, visit: http://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/juno
Juno https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_%28spacecraft%29