• NASA's Juno Spacecraft to Fly Over Jupiter's Great Red Spot July 10

    From baalke@1:2320/100 to sci.space.news on Fri Jun 30 22:58:06 2017
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    https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6891

    NASA's Juno Spacecraft to Fly Over Jupiter's Great Red Spot July 10
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    June 30, 2017

    Just days after celebrating its first anniversary in Jupiter orbit, NASA's Juno spacecraft will fly directly over Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the gas giant's iconic, 10,000-mile-wide (16,000-kilometer-wide) storm. This will
    be humanity's first up-close and personal view of the gigantic feature
    -- a storm monitored since 1830 and possibly existing for more than 350
    years.

    "Jupiter's mysterious Great Red Spot is probably the best-known feature
    of Jupiter," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "This monumental storm has
    raged on the solar system's biggest planet for centuries. Now, Juno and
    her cloud-penetrating science instruments will dive in to see how deep
    the roots of this storm go, and help us understand how this giant storm
    works and what makes it so special."

    The data collection of the Great Red Spot is part of Juno's sixth science flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops. Perijove (the point at which
    an orbit comes closest to Jupiter's center) will be on Monday, July 10,
    at 6:55 p.m. PDT (9:55 p.m. EDT). At the time of perijove, Juno will be
    about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops. Eleven minutes and 33 seconds later, Juno will have covered another 24,713 miles (39,771 kilometers) and will be directly above the coiling crimson cloud
    tops of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The spacecraft will pass about 5,600
    miles (9,000 kilometers) above the Giant Red Spot clouds. All eight of
    the spacecraft's instruments as well as its imager, JunoCam, will be on
    during the flyby.

    On July 4 at 7:30 p.m. PDT (10:30 p.m. EDT), Juno will have logged exactly
    one year in Jupiter orbit. At the time, the spacecraft will have chalked
    up about 71 million miles (114.5 million kilometers) in orbit around the
    giant planet.

    "The success of science collection at Jupiter is a testament to the dedication,

    creativity and technical abilities of the NASA-Juno team," said Rick Nybakken, project manager for Juno from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Each new orbit brings us closer to the heart of Jupiter's radiation belt, but so far the spacecraft has weathered the storm of electrons surrounding Jupiter better than we could have ever imagined."

    Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops --
    as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers). During these flybys,
    Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying
    its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

    Early science results from NASA's Juno mission portray the largest planet
    in our solar system as a turbulent world, with an intriguingly complex interior structure, energetic polar aurora, and huge polar cyclones.

    JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton,
    of Southwest Research Institute. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
    Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena.
    More information on the Juno mission is available at:

    https://www.nasa.gov/juno

    http://missionjuno.org

    The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

    https://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno

    https://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

    News Media Contact
    DC Agle / Guy Webster
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
    818-393-9011 / 818-354-6278
    agle@jpl.nasa.gov / guy.w.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

    Deb Schmid
    Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
    210-522-2254
    dschmid@swri.org

    Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
    NASA Headquarters, Washington
    202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
    dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

    2017-186

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