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After a 5 Year/2 Billion mile trip it will arrive just a few HOURS from now
I post here rather than science as I feel it's Newsworthy to everyone
Probably some spectacular pictures coming in next few weeks.
Pix and video within.
Giant spacecraft nears Jupiter
By Amanda Barnett, CNN
Mon July 4, 2016
Juno spacecraft arrives at Jupiter on July 4 - CNN.com
I post here rather than science as I feel it's Newsworthy to everyone
Probably some spectacular pictures coming in next few weeks.
Pix and video within.
Giant spacecraft nears Jupiter
By Amanda Barnett, CNN
Mon July 4, 2016
Juno spacecraft arrives at Jupiter on July 4 - CNN.com
It's been speeding toward Jupiter for nearly five years. Now -- can it slow down?
On Monday, NASA's Juno spacecraft -- a spinning, robotic probe as wide as a basketball court -- will perform what the space agency calls a 35-minute long "suspenseful" maneuver that will allow it to be pulled into orbit around Jupiter.
Basically, mission managers will hit the brakes, and they'll hit them hard.
They plan to fire Juno's main engine for 35 minutes starting at 8:18 p.m. PT (11:19 p.m. ET). That should slow the spacecraft by about 1,212 miles per hour (542 meters per second) and allow it to be pulled into orbit around Jupiter.
"We are ready," said Scott Bolton, the mission's principal investigator. "The science team is incredibly excited to be arriving at Jupiter," he said in a NASA press release.
Juno will circle Jupiter 37 times over 20 months, diving down to about 2,600 miles (4,100 kilometers) above the planet's dense clouds.
"Some of the challenges are we are going into the most treacherous place in the entire solar system, radiation fields that are really intense," Juno Project Manager Rick Nybakken told CNN's Paul Vercammen.
Juno has seven science instruments designed to help scientists figure out how Jupiter formed and evolved. The planet is the most massive in our solar system -- a huge ball of gas 11 times wider than Earth.
Researchers think it was the first planet to form and that it holds clues to how the solar system evolved.
"One of the primary goals of Juno is to learn the recipe for solar systems," Bolton said at a news conference. "How do you make the solar system? How do you make the planets in our solar system?"
Spacecraft have been to Jupiter before, but scientists still are puzzled by the gas giant.
What's going on under Jupiter's dense clouds? Does it have a solid core? How much water is in its atmosphere? And how deep are those colorful bands and that mysterious giant red spot?
"Jupiter looks a lot like the sun," Bolton said. But it has much more than the sun, and that's really important.
"The stuff that Jupiter has more of is what we're all made out of," he said. "It's what the Earth is made out of. It's what life comes from."
Juno will help solve the mysteries of Jupiter by looking at its interior. The spacecraft will orbit the poles and try to dodge the planet's most hazardous radiation belts. To protect the spacecraft from the radiation, Juno has a shielded electronics vault.
Juno also has a color camera and a three LEGO crew members (yes, LEGOs).
The camera is called JunoCam and NASA says it will take "spectacular close-up, color images" of Jupiter. NASA is asking the public to help decide where to point the camera.
[........]
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On Monday, NASA's Juno spacecraft -- a spinning, robotic probe as wide as a basketball court -- will perform what the space agency calls a 35-minute long "suspenseful" maneuver that will allow it to be pulled into orbit around Jupiter.
Basically, mission managers will hit the brakes, and they'll hit them hard.
They plan to fire Juno's main engine for 35 minutes starting at 8:18 p.m. PT (11:19 p.m. ET). That should slow the spacecraft by about 1,212 miles per hour (542 meters per second) and allow it to be pulled into orbit around Jupiter.
"We are ready," said Scott Bolton, the mission's principal investigator. "The science team is incredibly excited to be arriving at Jupiter," he said in a NASA press release.
Juno will circle Jupiter 37 times over 20 months, diving down to about 2,600 miles (4,100 kilometers) above the planet's dense clouds.
"Some of the challenges are we are going into the most treacherous place in the entire solar system, radiation fields that are really intense," Juno Project Manager Rick Nybakken told CNN's Paul Vercammen.
Juno has seven science instruments designed to help scientists figure out how Jupiter formed and evolved. The planet is the most massive in our solar system -- a huge ball of gas 11 times wider than Earth.
Researchers think it was the first planet to form and that it holds clues to how the solar system evolved.
"One of the primary goals of Juno is to learn the recipe for solar systems," Bolton said at a news conference. "How do you make the solar system? How do you make the planets in our solar system?"
Spacecraft have been to Jupiter before, but scientists still are puzzled by the gas giant.
What's going on under Jupiter's dense clouds? Does it have a solid core? How much water is in its atmosphere? And how deep are those colorful bands and that mysterious giant red spot?
"Jupiter looks a lot like the sun," Bolton said. But it has much more than the sun, and that's really important.
"The stuff that Jupiter has more of is what we're all made out of," he said. "It's what the Earth is made out of. It's what life comes from."
Juno will help solve the mysteries of Jupiter by looking at its interior. The spacecraft will orbit the poles and try to dodge the planet's most hazardous radiation belts. To protect the spacecraft from the radiation, Juno has a shielded electronics vault.
Juno also has a color camera and a three LEGO crew members (yes, LEGOs).
The camera is called JunoCam and NASA says it will take "spectacular close-up, color images" of Jupiter. NASA is asking the public to help decide where to point the camera.
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