NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / John Landino
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that it will expand the missions of two interplanetary explorers it launched in the past decade-the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter, and the InSight lander on the surface of Mars.
Juno expansion means that the spacecraft will operate in the Jupiter system by 2025. This will effectively transform the spacecraft from a mission to study Jupiter to a mature Jupiter system explorer, and complete a close flyby of several Jupiter satellites and their satellites. Ring system.
Returning to the inner solar system on the surface of Mars, the InSight mission will continue until December 2022. For the next two years, the lander will continue to operate its seismometer to identify earthquakes and continue to collect detailed information about the weather on the surface.
Having determined that both missions have completed excellent scientific work so far, an independent review team recommended that both missions be extended to NASA. Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Department at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said: “The advanced review has confirmed that these two planetary science missions may continue to bring new discoveries and new problems to our solar system. “
Excited about Juno
For us, Juno’s mission expansion is the most attractive. Since launching in 2011, Juno entered a polar orbit around Jupiter in July 2016. Since then, it has completed more than 30 orbits around the largest planet in the solar system, studying the composition and magnetic field of Jupiter. It also survived the extremely harsh radiation environment.
The extension indicates that scientists and engineers believe that the spacecraft is healthy enough to continue to work and can more than double the number of orbits in the Jupiter system to 76. In the next five years, the spacecraft will adjust its orbit so that Juno will be able to fly closer to some of Jupiter’s most attractive satellites.
As part of the research project submitted by Juno’s principal researcher Scott Bolton, the spacecraft will fly to within 1,000 kilometers of Europa’s surface this summer and within 320 kilometers of Europa by the end of 2022. In 2000, he flew twice to within 1,500 kilometers of volcanic Io. In 2024.
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Near the top of the image you can see three white oval storms called “strings of pearls.” Each of the alternating light and dark atmospheric zones is wider than the Earth and rages around Jupiter at a speed of several hundred kilometers per hour.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / GeraldEichstädt/SeánDoran
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A close-up of the enhanced color image of Jupiter’s cloud obtained by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
NASA/SWRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Sean Dolan
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Image of the new moon Jupiter and the iconic big red spot.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Roman Tkachenko
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When JunoCam took this picture on February 2 from an altitude of about 14,500 km above the giant planet’s rotating clouds, NASA’s Juno spacecraft skimmed the upper part of Jupiter’s atmosphere.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Roman Tkachenko
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Jupiter’s South Pole is 52,000 kilometers above sea level. The ellipse is characterized by a cyclone with a maximum diameter of 1,000km.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Betsy Asher Hall / Gervasio Robles
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This image highlights the swirling storm south of one of the white oval storms on Jupiter.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Jason Major
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A color-enhanced image of a mysterious dark spot on Jupiter appears to reveal a swirling storm of Jupiter’s “galaxy”.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Roman Tkachenko
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Jupiter’s face? By rotating the image 180 degrees and orienting it from the south up, two white oval storms turned into eyeballs and revealed Jupiter’s “face”.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Jason Major
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A close-up of the bright clouds that dot the tropical south of Jupiter.
NASA/SWRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Sean Dolan
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When approaching the extreme point, the organized turbulence of Jupiter’s belt and region transforms into clusters of disorganized filaments, and the air flow resembles a huge tangled string.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Gabriel Fiset
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A trip around: This series of enhanced color images shows the speed at which NASA’s Juno spacecraft observes changes in geometry when it is subducted by Jupiter.
NASA / SWRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstadt / Sean Doran
With these overflights, Juno will be able to study Ganymede’s surface changes since Voyager and Galileo missions and study the 3D structure of Ganymede’s magnetosphere. When it is very close to Europa, Juno should be able to determine whether the moon’s ice crust is thick or thin, and confirm the presence of underground liquid water. During multiple close overflights of Io, Juno will monitor short-term changes in volcanic activity, which lasted several months between Voyager and Galileo.
The cost of expanding missions is only a small part of the actual construction and launch of large interplanetary spacecraft, usually over $1 billion, so they are like a reward for solar system exploration.
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