Celestial Events -- On The New Year's Weekend: Juno To Dip In Close -- For A Look At The Chaotic, Active Jovian Moon Io.

The data will come rushing back to us, very early in the new year at SWRI.

It will seem a firehose, on full blast, were it "writ in water".

No doubt, it promises to give new insights into how this smallish rock is pulled and tugged -- by the massive gravitational / tidal forces of mighty Jupiter. Here's the latest:

. . .The orbiter has performed 56 flybys of Jupiter and documented close encounters with three of the gas giant’s four largest moons.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will on Saturday, Dec. 30, make the closest flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io that any spacecraft has made in over 20 years. Coming within roughly 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) from the surface of the most volcanic world in our solar system, the pass is expected to allow Juno instruments to generate a firehose of data.

“By combining data from this flyby with our previous observations, the Juno science team is studying how Io’s volcanoes vary,” said Juno’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. “We are looking for how often they erupt, how bright and hot they are, how the shape of the lava flow changes, and how Io’s activity is connected to the flow of charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.”

A second ultra-close flyby of Io is scheduled for Feb. 3, 2024, in which Juno will again come within about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the surface. . . .

Now you know. Be excellent to all whose paths you cross, now and into the new year 2024! [Even digit years. . . somehow always feel. . . smoother, to me. Heh.]

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