• NASA's Juno Spacecraft Completes Fifth Jupiter Flyby

    From baalke@1:2320/100 to sci.space.news on Tue Apr 4 23:48:58 2017
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    https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6792

    NASA's Juno Spacecraft Completes Fifth Jupiter Flyby
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    March 24, 2017

    Updated March 27, 2017 at 1:45 p.m. PDT

    NASA's Juno mission accomplished a close flyby of Jupiter on Monday, March
    27, successfully completing its fourth science orbit.

    All of Juno's science instruments and the spacecraft's JunoCam were operating during the flyby, collecting data that is now being returned to Earth.
    Juno's next close flyby of Jupiter will occur on May 19, 2017.

    NASA's Juno spacecraft will make its fifth flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops on Monday, March 27, at 1:52 a.m. PDT (4:52 a.m. EDT, 8:52
    UTC).

    At the time of closest approach (called perijove), Juno will be about
    2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops, traveling
    at a speed of about 129,000 miles per hour (57.8 kilometers per second) relative to the gas-giant planet. All of Juno's eight science instruments
    will be on and collecting data during the flyby.

    "This will be our fourth science pass -- the fifth close flyby of Jupiter
    of the mission -- and we are excited to see what new discoveries Juno
    will reveal," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Every time we get near Jupiter's cloud tops, we learn new insights that help us understand this amazing
    giant planet."

    The Juno science team continues to analyze returns from previous flybys. Scientists have discovered that Jupiter's magnetic fields are more complicated than originally thought, and that the belts and zones that give the planet's cloud tops their distinctive look extend deep into the its interior. Observations
    of the energetic particles that create the incandescent auroras suggest
    a complicated current system involving charged material lofted from volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io.

    Peer-reviewed papers with more in-depth science results from Juno's first flybys are expected to be published within the next few months.

    Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived
    in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops -- as close as about 2,600
    miles (4,100 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.

    NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. 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, California.

    More information on the Juno mission is available at:

    http://www.nasa.gov/juno

    http://missionjuno.org

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

    http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno

    http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

    News Media Contact
    DC Agle
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
    818-393-9011
    agle@jpl.nasa.gov

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

    2017-086

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