The American automatic interplanetary station Juno made it known that its equipment withstood the Earth-Jupiter flight
Here I will put on three wings and closer to you
NASA's Juno (Juno, Juno) spacecraft, launched 5 years ago, safely reached Jupiter and on July 5, 2016 entered the orbit of the giant planet - the fifth planet from the Sun. Now it flies there, spreading three solar panels - the largest of those that have ever been equipped with a spacecraft. Behind these batteries is another record - the longest use of solar energy with simultaneous flight stabilization.
Jupiter possesses the most powerful radiation belts, permeated with hard radiation. Scientists feared that it would damage the station's measuring equipment, even if hidden from sin in a special titanium shell. But it did. The operability of five scientific instruments has already been confirmed. The camera also works - JunoCam, installed on board. It is akin to the one that the Curiosity rover is equipped with. The first images taken by JunoCam from orbit have already been transmitted and received on 10 July. NASA is enthusiastically publishing them on its website, announcing that Jupiter was photographed from a distance of 4 million 300 thousand kilometers. The next session - with clearer pictures - is scheduled for August 27, when Juno flies closer to the planet.
The first image taken by the camera on board Juno after the station entered Jupiter's orbit. Three satellites of the planet got into the frame.
As a precaution, Juno's orbit passes through the poles of the giant planet, where the radiation is not so intense. Moreover, it is strongly elongated. So, flying far away, the station will "rest" from the destructive environment.
Promotional video:
Satntia entered Jupiter's orbit, slipping into the polar gap of its radiation belts.
The current orbit is intermediate. While on it, Juno makes one revolution in about 53 days. Further, having already begun scientific work, the apparatus will enter a 14-day orbit. And according to the plan, he should make 37 turns, again moving away, then approaching Jupiter. The trajectory of some orbits will pass one and a half thousand kilometers from the surface of the clouds.
Juno's 14-day orbit is laid out so that the station is either approaching or moving away from Jupiter. And so - 37 turns.
The main task of the mission Juno's task is to study the gravitational and magnetic field of Jupiter, its atmosphere.
Scott Bolton, the mission's principal investigator, has promised that NASA will release the first scientific data collected by the station on September 1.
Juno will finish its flight in 2017 - scientists plan to drown the station in the atmosphere of Jupiter, collecting some additional data along the way. Juno will either burn or be crushed.
The reprisal against the station is needed so that, left unattended, it does not crash on any of the many satellites of Jupiter and does not pollute it with anything earthly. After all, there are suspicions that life may exist on one or even several large satellites - and some are larger than our Moon. At least in the form of microbes. Scientists would like someday to find the "aborigines" and not those who arrived from Juno from Earth.
WHAT IS HIDDEN UNDER COVER OF CLOUDS
Juno is a name from Roman mythology. That was the name of the wife of Jupiter - the main god. In Greek mythology, these divine spouses are Zeus and Hera. Jupiter - aka Zeus - was known as an incredible lecher, entered into numerous intimate relationships with both goddesses and nymphs and even with simple earthly women. In order to hide his adventures from his wife, Jupiter covered himself with dense clouds - he was disgraceful under them. But Juno - she Hera learned to see through the cloudy layer. And she watched her unfaithful husband.
So NASA scientists believe that their Juno will also see through the densest clouds. Without any mysticism. It now has a Microwave Radiometer (MWR), which allows it to look 550 kilometers into Jupiter's atmosphere.
The real Jupiter is also full of secrets that I would like to reveal along the way.
1. Thunder and lightning
The so-called Great Red Spot (BKP) looks very mysterious - a giant atmospheric vortex - the largest hurricane in the solar system, in which several planets such as Earth would easily have drowned. The hurricane has not abated for at least 350 years - since it was first noticed. Moreover, all these years the vortex funnel has been in the same place. Rotates at a speed of about 500 kilometers per hour. But for some reason it gradually decreases.
The dimensions of the Great Red Spot are incredible. Like everything on Jupiter.
Jupiter, by the way, is rich in other hurricanes, which sometimes line up in bizarre "installations".
For example, astronomer Damian Peach captured in the planet's atmosphere an object very similar to Mickey Mouse, the famous character in Disney cartoons.
As the scientists explained, Mickey Mouse is huge, stretching for tens of thousands of kilometers. Formed by three hurricanes raging in the atmosphere of the gas giant. "Ears" are anticyclones - zones with high pressure. "Muzzle" - a cyclone - a zone of low pressure.
Jupiter is joking - Mickey Mouse shows.
Jupiter is generally stormy. If you look closely, it is all strewn with spots of cyclones and anticyclones. The reason for this atmospheric anomaly is not clear. In addition, giant lightning flashes on Jupiter - thousands of times longer than on Earth. Probably, the thunder is thundering so that you can go deaf.
2. Fireworks in honor of Juno
At the poles of Jupiter, fiery rings of polar lights sparkle. They are very stable - they blaze for a long time and brightly. In telescopes, astronomers see flashes from the Earth. And in 2016 - June 30 - when Juno flew to the target, Jupiter flashed the strongest aurora in the entire history of their observations.
And the Northern Lights on Jupiter are just cyclopean.
“It looks like Jupiter has started launching fireworks in honor of Juno’s arrival,” joked Jonathan Nichols from the University of Leicester.
3. Fire rings
The infrared images show that there are powerful heat sources under the cloud layer. Some look like stripes, others like spots. Due to some mysterious processes, Jupiter generates energy - it emits 60 percent more than it receives from the Sun.
Inside, Jupiter is warm: the light stripes are areas of increased temperature.
It is possible that Jupiter is a failed star. And maybe even extinct, which is not excluded by some hotheads.
4. Radio broadcast
Jupiter is broadcasting. Figuratively speaking, of course. Nothing sensible - just some sporadic bursts at frequencies of 5 to 43 MHz. But they are the most powerful in the solar system after the radio waves that the sun itself emits.
In the radio image, Jupiter does not look like a ball at all. He seems to be drowning in his own radio waves.
5. X-ray machine
In 2000, data obtained with the Chandra orbiting telescope demonstrated that Jupiter has sources of pulsed X-rays. They were called large x-ray spots. The nature of the spots is not clear.
Jupiter is replete with X-ray sources. Bristled with them like a porcupine with needles.
6. Like a top
Jupiter rotates on its axis faster than all other planets, making one revolution in about 10 hours - rapidly for such an impressive mass. 10 hours is how long a day lasts on the planet.
Due to its rapid rotation, Jupiter "inflates" in the equatorial region. Here its radius is 71,492 kilometers. The polar radius is less - 66854 kilometers.
7. What's inside him
And the most important secret. With the help of instruments installed on Juno, scientists propose to test a very controversial hypothesis that inside the planet, considered a gas giant, there is a solid core - maybe rocky, or maybe made of exotic material - metallic hydrogen.
AT THIS TIME
Is there another planet inside Jupiter?
Calculations and computer simulations carried out by the Chinese astronomer Shu Lin L from Peking University in China and his American colleague Douglas Lin from the University of California, Santa Cruz showed: when there were many more planets in the solar system than there are now. Among them were the so-called "super-earths" - planets, the mass of which is many times greater than the earth.
"Super-Earths" are necessarily present in other star systems. They were the first to be discovered with telescopes in other worlds. But in ours - there is no such variety. Where have the massive neighbors gone?
Simulation gave an answer to this question as well. It turned out that the "super-earths" collided with gas giants and became their nuclei. For example, Jupiter once swallowed a planet with a mass of 10 Earths. This is the minimum.
Scientists seriously believe that Jupiter once swallowed some large rocky planet. And he didn't choke.
According to the researchers, collisions with bodies of a larger or smaller size have survived all the planets of the solar system. Including our Earth, from which something massive broke off the Moon.
BTW
Sometimes Jupiter stares at us. Like a cyclops
On April 21, 2014, astronomers, observing Jupiter, saw that he was looking at them too. Literally. He looks with a huge eye that formed on the surface of the giant planet. Such an amazing, almost mystical phenomenon was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, which was aimed at the Great Red Spot - the most famous "landmark" of Jupiter. I followed the changes that are taking place there. Photographed. In one of the pictures, Jupiter appeared as a kind of Cyclops.
Jupiter decided to see who is flying to him this time.
The eye is definitely like a Cyclops.
The mystery of the phenomenon was quickly revealed. As NASA experts explained, Jupiter "goggled" his eye not meaningfully, but as a result of the fact that a shadow from Ganymede, one of the planet's many satellites, fell on the Great Red Spot. Thus, the “pupil” appeared in the “eye”. And the illusion of a gaze arose.
REFERENCE
The Great Red Spot (GRS) was discovered by Giovanni Cassini in 1665. Until recently, before the Voyager spacecraft transmitted high-quality images of Jupiter, it was believed that the BKP - this something solid - rises above the planet and sticks out of its bowels. But it turned out that the spot is an atmospheric formation - an anticyclone, and in fact a hurricane of unimaginable size. It stretches for about 30 thousand kilometers in length and 12 in width.
In shape, the BKP is a poured eye, which only lacked the pupil (see above).
For some reason, the Great Red Spot gets smaller over the years.
The BKP is the largest atmospheric vortex in the solar system. Several such planets as our Earth could easily sink in it. The wind speed inside the vortex reaches 500 kilometers per hour. This hurricane is the longest. It has existed at least since it was discovered. That is, it has not stopped for almost 350 years. But it is changing. If you believe the observations of 100 years ago, then the BCP was about 2 times larger.
Ganymede is a satellite of Jupiter, the largest satellite in the solar system. Discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. That is, before the BKP. Ganymede has a diameter of 5268 kilometers. It weighs 2 times more than our Moon, which has a diameter of 3,474 kilometers.
BUT WHAT IF
We ourselves will not be from Jupiter?
There is a crazy, but very popular and beautiful hypothesis that the gas giant was once a star. And humanity even caught this miracle. Indeed, many peoples in myths remember that they saw two Suns in the sky.
Some myths indicate that there were once two suns in the sky.
More scientific basis: in the Universe, most stars - binary - are arranged in pairs. And loners, like our Sun, on the contrary, are rare.
Jupiter, with its many satellites, resembles a miniature solar system. Very large "planets" revolve around it. Including those covered with a thick layer of ice. For example, Europe, where the same NASA is going to look for life. Search - in the ocean, which is almost certainly preserved under the ice.
Jupiter's system resembles the Solar one - only in miniature.
And who knows, if Jupiter was once a star, then Europe could not be a frozen world, but quite alive. Fantastic, of course, but what if there were intelligent beings living there? Maybe our ancestors?
This is how the inhabitants of one of its moons would see Jupiter.
The gravity on Europa is much smaller than on Earth. But here's what is surprising: we are just poorly adapted to the current force of gravity. We earn from it varicose veins, inflammation of the joints. And if we fall from two or three meters, we break bones. Our skin - with the exception of the Negro - can hardly bear the scorching rays of the Great Sun - it comes to burns. The eyes are also not well adjusted - most people wear sunglasses. But the Small Sun - a sparing Jupiter in the form of some kind of red dwarf would fit just right. By the way, there are red dwarfs in our galaxy, which are only 30 percent larger than Jupiter.
Suddenly we are not really local …
Vladimir LAGOVSKY