NASA’s Juno Team Accessed the Images from JunoCam On the 48th Flyby of Jupiter!

NASA’s Juno Team Accessed the Images from JunoCam On the 48th Flyby of Jupiter!

Picture taken by the solar-powered orbiter’s JunoCam but not obtained engineering data are being evaluated again. The JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft did not acquire all planned images during the orbiter’s most recent flyby of Jupiter on Jan. 22. On Juno’s most recent flyby on Jan. 22 of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft didn’t forward all the images that were captured. It is just as similar to the past months’ flyby. Just like one that NASA’s team faces on its previous flyby of the gas giant last month when the team saw the irregular rise in temperature after the camera was on in preparation for the flyby.

Is this the first time JunoCam faces an irregular rise in temperature?

Compared to the past month’s flyby this issue lasts longer. During December close pass the issue only remains for about 36 minutes. However, on this occasion, the issue persisted for about about 23 hours. This leaves the first 214 JunoCam images unusable during the flyby. The issue was all set after some time. Once the issue that was causing the rise in temperature was set the remaining 44 images were obtained with good quality and were usable.

Is this issue still bothering Juno?

During JunoCam’s 47th and 48th recent flybys of the mission, the team is evaluating the engineering data acquired. The mission team is also up to analyze the root cause of the anomaly and migration strategies. JunoCam will remain powered on for the time being and the camera continues to operate in its nominal state. For the time being the JunoCam will remain turned on and will continue to operate in a nominal state.

Designed to capture images of the gas giant cloud tops the JunoCam is a color, visible-light camera. The JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft for purposes of public engagement. But now after its progress, it has also proven to be significant for scientific investigations. Designed to operate in Jupiter’s high-energy particle conditions The camera has at least seven orbits but has survived far longer. Lastly, the Juno spacecraft will make its 49th flyby of Jupiter on March 1.

 

Published by: Sky Headlines

Europe is ready to set off for another mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moons

Europe is ready to set off for another mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moons

Europe is about to embark on one of its largest-scale space missions to examine Jupiter’s icy moons. After being put through its final testing in Toulouse, France, the Juice satellite will be transported to its launch site in South America and take off in April. The six-ton spacecraft will make quick flybys of Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa and use special instruments to check for signs of habitability. Although the Jovian system is located far from the sun, it gets enough energy from Jupiter that liquid water could be pooled beneath its surface; an element necessary for life. It is an 8.5-year journey of about 6.6 billion km.

The European Space Agency (ESA) team behind this project gathered this week and gave the ‘go for launch’ command. Airbus, who spearheaded the construction of Juice for a cost of €1.6bn (£1.4bn; $1.7bn), also has drawn expertise and components from across Europe. Special radar will search inside Jupiter’s icy moons; and create 3D maps of their surfaces. Moreover, magnetometers will discover their electrically charged environments; and sensors that capture particles orbiting there.

The goal of the “Juice” mission is not to search for signs of life. Instead, it aims to determine if future missions can examine the signs of life in more detail. This may include sending a lander to drill into Mars’ crust to search for trapped liquid water. This ambitious goal might become a reality by the end of the century. Working with outer space requires one to be patient!

What do experts say about Jupiter’s icy moons?

A thermal architect Séverine Deschamps said: “We have two big vaults inside the spacecraft to protect the computers from radiation and to maintain them through a network of pipes at the same level of temperature,” Moreover, he said: “The same is true for the propulsion system. Its operation has to be maintained around the 20C, quite warm, to get a good level of performance when firing.”

“In the case of Europa, it’s thought there’s a deep ocean, maybe 100km deep, underneath its ice crust,” Moreover, on BBC News Prof Emma Bunce from Leicester University, UK said about Europe’s mission to Jupiter’s icy moons: “That depth of the ocean is 10 times that of the deepest ocean on Earth, and the ocean is in contact, we think, with a rocky floor. So that provides a scenario where there is mixing and some interesting chemistry,”.

Juice arrives at Jupiter at that time, scheduled for July 2031. After making 35 flybys of each of the three moons, it will eventually make a permanent home near Ganymede in late 2034.

Hopefully, a lot of mysteries will be uncovered about Jupiter’s icy moons from this mission.

Published by: Sky Headlines