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NASA’s Juno Triumphantly Reaches Jupiter’s Orbit
Way beyond the fireworks that lit up our night sky on Monday night, an almost 12-foot hexagonal-shaped spacecraft named Juno entered Jupiter’s orbit. After five years of traveling through space, Juno will now orbit Jupiter 37 times to relay information about the planet’s core.
Juno made it through radiation belts that could have hindered the craft from entering orbit, and since there is a 48-minute time delay when communicating with Juno, NASA officials were on the edge of their seats.
Officials will now send signals to Juno to let it know to turn its scientific instruments on again since they powered down to get past the tricky area. In August, the first information about Jupiter will be received when Juno finally reaches close enough to Jupiter in its huge oval orbit.
KUT reported that Rick Nybakken, Juno’s Project Manager, made a triumphant statement after Juno’s success. “‘We prepared a contingency communications procedure,’ he said, just in case the engine didn’t fire and the mission was a failure. With a flourish he tore it in half. ‘We don’t need it.'”
NASAJuno‘s YouTube channel gives a great informative overview of the project’s goals and achievements. Thanks to Juno, here are four of Jupiter’s largest moons (out of 67) shown in motion from June 12th to June 29th:
