She's flown over 510 million miles into the cold nights. . . and 49 times, already, through the furnace of the magnetosphere at each pole -- of the gas giant Jupiter. She's shown us many views of Io, but will give us a truly DeMille worthy close up set, tomorrow -- if all goes as planned.
Here's the rundown, for tomorrow -- but she has already vastly exceeded her engineering best cases, by every measure:
. . .“Io is the most volcanic celestial body that we know of in our solar system,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “By observing it over time on multiple passes, we can watch how the volcanoes vary – how often they erupt, how bright and hot they are, whether they are linked to a group or solo, and if the shape of the lava flow changes.”
Slightly larger than Earth’s moon, Io is a world in constant torment. Not only is the biggest planet in the solar system forever pulling at it gravitationally, but so are its Galilean siblings – Europa and the biggest moon in the solar system, Ganymede. The result is that Io is continuously stretched and squeezed, actions linked to the creation of the lava seen erupting from its many volcanoes.
While Juno was designed to study Jupiter, its many sensors have additionally provided a wealth of data on the planet’s moons. Along with its visible light imager JunoCam, the spacecraft’s JIRAM (Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper), SRU (Stellar Reference Unit), and MWR (Microwave Radiometer) will be studying Io’s volcanoes and how volcanic eruptions interact with Jupiter’s powerful magnetosphere and auroras. . . .
Do stay tuned. This is absolutely, positively. . . an amazing time to be alive! "She walks in starry climes. . . her night, a blackened-pavement -- powdered with. . . Milton's stars, and all with unwasted grace. . ." Smile. . . .
नमस्ते
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