One-Week Countdown Begins for Juno Mission's Daring Arrival at Jupiter
Source: Space.com
One-Week Countdown Begins for Juno Mission's Daring Arrival at Jupiter
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer | June 27, 2016 06:53am ET
NASA's Juno probe is only one week away from its arrival at Jupiter, where it will execute a daring maneuver in order to get closer to the giant planet than any other spacecraft in history.
Getting up-close and personal with Jupiter is a serious challenge for space probes, because the Jovian giant is surrounded by a belt of very intense radiation that can quickly fry most spacecraft electronics. So rather than orbiting the planet, Juno will make a series of 37 loops between Jupiter and the radiation ring.
On July 4, Juno's engines will burn for about 35 minutes to slow down the probe so it can enter into its loopy orbit in the Jupiter system. But if the maneuver doesn't go as planned, Juno could fly right past Jupiter, putting an end to the $1.1 billion mission.
The primary science objective of the Juno mission is to collect information about Jupiter's interior, which will provide clues about how the planet formed. That, in turn, could provide information about the history of the entire solar system, and about the formation history of other solar systems in the universe.
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