NASA’s Juno spacecraft will get closer to the cloud tops of Jupiter on Saturday, August 27. The flyby is expected to provide preliminary science data.
This image of Jupiter was taken on August 23, when Juno was 2.8 million miles (4.4 million km) from the gas giant on the inbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit. The image is a color composite taken with JunoCam’s visible red, green, and blue filters. Bright features like the planet’s Great Red Spot are higher in the atmosphere, and so have less of their light absorbed by the methane. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.
“This is the first time we will be close to Jupiter since we entered orbit on July 4,” said Juno principal investigator Dr. Scott Bolton, from Southwest Research Institute.
“This is our first opportunity to really take a close-up look at the king of our Solar System and begin to figure out how he works.”
Juno’s closest approach, within 2,500 miles (4,200 km) of Jupiter’s swirling clouds, will occur at 8:51 a.m. EDT (5:51 a.m. PDT, 12:51 UTC).
“No other spacecraft has ever orbited Jupiter this closely, or over the poles in this fashion,” said Juno project scientist Dr. Steve Levin, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“This is our first opportunity and there are bound to be surprises. We need to take our time to make sure our conclusions are correct.”
There are 35 more close flybys of Jupiter scheduled during its prime mission. The August 27 flyby will be the first time Juno will have its entire suite of science instruments activated and looking at the gas giant the spacecraft zooms past.
While the science data from the pass should be downlinked to Earth within days, interpretation and first results are not expected for some time.
Not only will Juno’s science instruments be on, JunoCam – the spacecraft’s visible-light camera/telescope – will also be snapping some close-ups.
JunoCam images, including the high-resolution imagery of the atmosphere of Jupiter and the first glimpse of gas giant’s north and south poles, are expected to be released during the next week.
