Juno Extended Mission, Perijove 34-76 |
Juno Extended Mission, Perijove 34-76 |
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Moderator Posts: 3234 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 ![]() |
At today's Outer Planet Assessment Group (OPAG) meeting, Scott Bolton gave a presentation on Juno, providing an update on the mission and providing more information on its extended mission proposal. The proposal has been sent to NASA and they expect a final decision later this year.
The proposed extended mission starts where the current one ends at perijove 34 in June 2021 and continues through orbit 76 in September 2025. The continued northward progression of the perijove latitude, and continued lower altitude of the ascending node, is going to enable a lot of great science both at Jupiter (higher resolution views of Jupiter's poles) and of its satellites. Most excitingly for me, Juno will perform several flybys of the Galilean satellites. This includes a 1000-km encounter with Ganymede next June during PJ34, a 320-km encounter with Europa in late 2022, and TWO Io flybys in early 2024 at an altitude of 1500 km. There are also a number of "Voyager-class" encounters with Ganymede, Europa, and Io between mid-2021 and mid-2025. The PDF for Scott Bolton's presentation can be found on the page for the OPAG meeting: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/meetings/opag2020fall/ -------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 ![]() |
That is exciting.
I know that the eye candy is fun for all of us, and this forum is a particularly good medium (and talent base) for image processing but I am getting increasingly interested in the less-flashy and slower-to-evolve science on the interior of Jupiter and the synergistic study of the interior of Saturn that capitalized heavily on the last phase of the Cassini mission. The status, on a meta-level is that Juno has placed some important constraints on the interior structure of Jupiter but there's still a lot of uncertainty regarding the details and no consensus regarding Jupiter's origin. I don't know with what certainty more perijoves will answer those questions, but the questions are important and more perijoves sure can't hurt. It's also very interesting that Jupiter and Saturn are significantly different internally. All of that said, I'm also looking forward to the Galilean eye candy. There could be some important science there, in advance of Europa Clipper getting to the vicinity. |
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