The three Lego figures inside: Galileo, Juno and Jupiter. Source: NASA
Given its historic importance – being just the second spacecraft to conduct a long-term mission to Jupiter – NASA was sure to outfit the Juno probe with some high-end memorabilia. These include the Galileo commemorative plaque*, which shows Galileo’s face and the words he wrote when he first observed Jupiter’s four largest moons in 1610 (known today as the Galilean Moons).
In addition, three commemorative figures (each measuring 4 cm high) were created especially for the mission. Created by Lego, these figurines depict the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno, and the astronomer Galileo Galilei – each holding an identifying object. Constructed from aluminum so they could withstand the trip and the radiation of the gas giant, these figures arrived with the probe around Jupiter on Monday, July 4th.
Much like the Juno spacecraft that is ferrying them, these figurines have spent the past 5 years in space and traversing the 869 million kilometers that lie between Earth from Jupiter. As part of Lego’s “Build Your Future” campaign, the trio are part of an educational outreach program to inspire kids around the world to learn about science and technology.
A key part of this effort is the Building Challenge launched by Lego to raise awareness about space exploration. For this challenge, participants are asked to build their vision of the future of space exploration using Lego bricks, take pictures of their creation, and then upload them to the Lego website’s “Mission to Space” gallery. The winning creations will be featured on LEGO.com and the Gallery homepage.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft launched on August 6, 2011 and should arrive at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Credit: NASA / JPL
In addition, Lego’s website has new content that encourages children to learn more about the Solar System. As they state on the webpage:
“Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could visit other planets and travel through space? Well, here’s your chance to go on a mission to Space through a partnership between NASA and LEGO Group! Pack your space lunch, and get ready to fly the International Space Station, pass the Moon, to Mars and Jupiter! Learn fun facts about our solar system, play quizzes, and get a taste of life as an astronaut and space pioneer! Round off the trip by entering an out-of-this-world building challenge.”
True to their mythological roots, the figurine of Jupiter (the Roman equivalent of Zeus) is holding a lightning bolt. Juno, his wife, is holding a magnifying glass, which represents her ability to see through the clouds that Jupiter surrounded himself with. And Galileo, the famed astronomer who was the first to view Jupiter’s moons, holds his famed telescope and an orb representing Jupiter.
These three figurines are the closest thing the Juno spacecraft has to a crew. During the next two years, they will be with the probe as it orbits Jupiter a total of 37 times, conducting surveys of Jupiter’s atmosphere, interior, magnetosphere, and gravitational field. When the mission is over, they will deorbit with the probe, crashing into Jupiter’s atmosphere to prevent any contamination of Jupiter’s moons.
Three LEGO figurines representing the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno and Galileo Galilei are shown here aboard the Juno spacecraft. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/KSC
Over the course of the past three days, numerous memes have popped up across the internet, claiming that: “When Galileo first spotted Jupiter’s largest moons, he named them after Jove’s (Zeus’) mistresses. Now, a probe named after his wife will arrive in the system, thus fulfilling a joke astronomers have been setting up for the past 400 years!” – I’m paraphrasing, of course!
Nevertheless, the observation is an apt one. And to make this witty statement complete, all those figures who had a hand in lending Jupiter the cultural significant it has (be they historical or mythological) will be represented as Juno tries to unveil Jupiter’s mysteries. Sure, those likenesses are just 4 cm in height, and they are built out of aluminum instead of marble, but it’s the thought that counts!
*The Galileo commemorative plague contains script written in Italian by Galileo’s own hand. It reads:
“On the 11th it was in this formation, and the star closest to Jupiter was half the size than the other and very close to the other so that during the previous nights all of the three observed stars looked of the same dimension and among them equally afar; so that it is evident that around Jupiter there are three moving stars invisible till this time to everyone.”
And be sure to enjoy this video of NASA’s Juno team celebrating the probe’s arrival at Jupiter:
Artist's conception of how WISE 0855 might appear if viewed close-up in infrared light. Artwork by Joy Pollard, Gemini Observatory/AURA.
Brown dwarfs – those not-quite-a-planet and not-quite-a-star objects – are intriguing oddities that are too low in mass to burn hydrogen, but are more massive than planets. They only emit a faint amount of light, so they are hard to detect, making scientists unsure of how many of them might be out there in our galaxy.
But astronomers have been keeping an eye one particular brown dwarf known called WISE 0855. Just 7.2 light-years from Earth, it is the coldest known object outside of our Solar System and is just barely visible at infrared wavelengths. But with some crafty spectroscopic observing techniques, astronomers have now determined this object has some exciting characteristics: its atmosphere is full of clouds of water vapor. This is the first time water clouds have been detected outside of our Solar System.
“It’s five times fainter than any other object detected with ground-based spectroscopy at this wavelength,” said Andrew Skemer, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz and the first author on a paper on WISE 0855 published in Astrophysical Journal Letters (paper is available on arXiv here). “Now that we have a spectrum, we can really start thinking about what’s going on in this object. Our spectrum shows that WISE 0855 is dominated by water vapor and clouds, with an overall appearance that is strikingly similar to Jupiter.”
This brown dwarf’s full name is WISE J085510.83-071442.5, but we’re among friends, so it’s W0855 for short. It has about five times the mass of Jupiter and is the coldest brown dwarf ever detected, with an average temperature of about 250 degrees Kelvin, or minus 10 degrees F, minus 20 C. That makes it nearly as cold as Jupiter, which is 130 degrees Kelvin.
“WISE 0855 is our first opportunity to study an extrasolar planetary-mass object that is nearly as cold as our own gas giants,” Skemer said.
Skemer and his team used the Gemini-North telescope in Hawaii and the Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph to observe WISE 0855 over 13 nights for a total of about 14 hours. Skemer was part of a team that studied this object in 2014 found tentative indications of water clouds based on very limited photometric data. Skemer said obtaining a spectrum (which separates the light from an object into its component wavelengths) was the only way to detect this object’s molecular composition.
A video about the 2014 discovery and study of WISE 0855:
WISE 0855 is too faint for conventional spectroscopy at optical or near-infrared wavelengths, but the team took up a challenge and looked at the thermal emissions from the object at wavelengths in a narrow window around 5 microns.
“I think everyone on the research team really believed that we were dreaming to think we could obtain a spectrum of this brown dwarf because its thermal glow is so feeble,” said Skemer. WISE 0855, is so cool and faint that many astronomers thought it would be years before a spectrum could be obtained. “I thought we’d have to wait until the James Webb Space Telescope was operating to do this,” Skemer said.
This spectroscopic view provided a glimpse into the environment of WISE 0855’s atmosphere. With the data in hand, the researchers then developed atmospheric models of the equilibrium chemistry for a brown dwarf at 250 degrees Kelvin and calculated the resulting spectra under different assumptions, including cloudy and cloud-free models. The models predicted a spectrum dominated by features resulting from water vapor, and the cloudy model yielded the best fit to the features in the spectrum of WISE 0855.
While the spectra of this object are strikingly similar to Jupiter, WISE 0855 appears to have a less turbulent atmosphere.
“The spectrum allows us to investigate dynamical and chemical properties that have long been studied in Jupiter’s atmosphere, but this time on an extrasolar world,” Skemer said.
The scientists say WISE 0855 looks more similar to Jupiter than any exoplanet yet discovered, which is especially intriguing since the Juno mission has just begun its exploration at the giant world. Jupiter, along with the other gas planets in our Solar System, all have clouds and storms, although Jupiter’s clouds are mainly made of ammonia with lower level clouds perhaps containing water. One of Juno’s goals is to determine the global water abundance at Jupiter.
In this near-infrared mosaic, the sun shines off of the seas on Saturn's moon, Titan. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/University of Idaho
Saturn’s largest moon Titan is a truly fascinating place. Aside from Earth, it is the only place in the Solar System where rainfall occurs and there are active exchanges between liquids on the surface and fog in the atmosphere – albeit with methane instead of water. It’s atmospheric pressure is also comparable to Earth’s, and it is the only other body in the Solar System that has a dense atmosphere that is nitrogen-rich.
For some time, astronomers and planetary scientists have speculated that Titan might also have the prebiotic conditions necessary for life. Others, meanwhile, have argued that the absence of water on the surface rules out the possibility of life existing there. But according to a recent study produced by a research team from Cornell University, the conditions on Titan’s surface might support the formation of life without the need for water.
When it comes to searching for life beyond Earth, scientists focus on targets that possess the necessary ingredients for life as we know it – i.e. heat, a viable atmosphere, and water. This is essentially the “low-hanging fruit” approach, where we search for conditions resembling those here on Earth. Titan – which is very cold, quite distant from our Sun, and has a thick, hazy atmosphere – does not seem like a viable candidate, given these criteria.
Diagram of the internal structure of Titan according to the fully differentiated dense-ocean model. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Kelvinsong
However, according to the Cornell research team – which is led by Dr. Martin Rahm – Titan presents an opportunity to see how life could emerge under different conditions, one which are much colder than Earth and don’t involve water.
Previous experiments have shown that hydrogen cyanide (HCN) molecules can link together to form polyimine, a polymer that can serve as a precursor to amino acids and nucleic acids (the basis for protein cells and DNA). Previous surveys have also shown that hydrogen cyanide is the most abundant hydrogen-containing molecule in Titan’s atmosphere.
As Professor Lunine – the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and Director of the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science and co-author of the study – told Universe Today via email: “Organic molecules, liquid lakes and seas (but of methane, not water) and some amount of solar energy reaches the surface. So this suggests the possibility of an environment that might host an exotic form of life.”
Titan’s thick, hazy atmosphere may conceal clues as to the possibility of life-giving conditions on its surface. Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI/J. Major
Using quantum mechanical calculations, the Cornell team showed that polyimine has electronic and structural properties that could facilitate prebiotic chemistry under very cold conditions. These involve the ability to absorb a wide spectrum of light, which is predicted to occur in a window of relative transparency in Titan’s atmosphere.
Another is the fact that polyimine has a flexible backbone, and can therefore take on many different structures (aka. polymorphs). These range from flat sheets to complex coiled structures, which are relatively close in energy. Some of these structures, according to the team, could work to accelerate prebiotic chemical reactions, or even form structures that could act as hosts for them.
“Polyimine can form sheets,” said Lunine, “which like clays might serve as a catalytic surface for prebiotic reactions. We also find the polyimine absorbs sunlight where Titan’s atmosphere is quite transparent, which might help to energize reactions.”
In short, the presence of polyimine could mean that Titan’s surface gets the energy its needs to drive photochemical reactions necessary for the creation of organic life, and that it could even assist in the development of that life. But of course, no evidence has been found that polyimine has been produced on the surface of Titan, which means that these research findings are still academic at this point.
Proposed missions to Titan have included (from left to right) the TALISE (Titan Lake In-situ Sampling Propelled Explorer) and NASA’s Titan Mare Explorer. Credit: bisbos.com
However, Lunine and his team indicate that hydrogen cyanide may very well have lead to the creation of polyimine on Titan, and that it might have simply escaped detection because of Titan’s murky atmosphere. They also added that future missions to Titan might be able to look for signs of the polymer, as part of ongoing research into the possibility of exotic life emerging in other parts of the Solar System.
“We would need an advanced payload on the surface to sample and search for polyimines,” answered Lunine, “or possibly by a next generation spectrometer from orbit. Both of these are “beyond Cassini”, that is, the next generation of missions.”
Perhaps when Juno is finished surveying Jupiter’s atmosphere in two years time, NASA might consider retasking it for a flyby of Titan? After all, Juno was specifically designed to peer beneath a veil of thick clouds. They don’t come much thicker than on Titan!
The Jovian planets of the Solar System. Credit: bork.hampshire.edu
Beyond our Solar System’s “Frost Line” – the region where volatiles like water, ammonia and methane begin to freeze – four massive planets reside. Though these planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – vary in terms of size, mass, and composition, they all share certain characteristics that cause them to differ greatly from the terrestrial planets located in the inner Solar System.
Officially designated as gas (and/or ice) giants, these worlds also go by the name of “Jovian planets”. Used interchangeably with terms like gas giant and giant planet, the name describes worlds that are essentially “Jupiter-like”. And while the Solar System contains four such planets, extra-solar surveys have discovered hundreds of Jovian planets, and that’s just so far…
Definition:
The term Jovian is derived from Jupiter, the largest of the Outer Planets and the first to be observed using a telescope – by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Taking its name from the Roman king of the gods – Jupiter, or Jove – the adjective Jovian has come to mean anything associated with Jupiter; and by extension, a Jupiter-like planet.
The giant planets of the Solar System (aka. the Jovians). Credit: spiff.rit.edu
Within the Solar System, four Jovian planets exist – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. A planet designated as Jovian is hence a gas giant, composed primarily of hydrogen and helium gas with varying degrees of heavier elements. In addition to having large systems of moons, these planets each have their own ring systems as well.
Another common feature of gas giants is their lack of a surface, at least when compared to terrestrial planets. In all cases, scientists define the “surface” of a gas giant (for the sake of defining temperatures and air pressure) as being the region where the atmospheric pressure exceeds one bar (the pressure found on Earth at sea level).
Structure and Composition:
In all cases, the gas giants of our Solar System are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium with the remainder being taken up by heavier elements. These elements correspond to a structure that is differentiated between an outer layer of molecular hydrogen and helium that surrounds a layer of liquid (or metallic) hydrogen or volatile elements, and a probable molten core with a rocky composition.
Due to difference in their structure and composition, the four gas giants are often differentiated, with Jupiter and Saturn being classified as “gas giants” while Uranus and Neptune are “ice giants”. This is due to the fact that Neptune and Uranus have higher concentrations of methane and heavier elements – like oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur – in their interior.
Interior models of the giant planets, showing rocky cores overlaid by solid and gaseous envelopes. Credit: NASA/JPL
In stark contrast to the terrestrial planets, the density of the gas giants is slightly greater than that of water (1 g/cm³). The one exception to this is Saturn, where the mean density is actually lower than water (0.687 g/cm3). In all cases, temperature and pressure increase dramatically the closer one ventures into the core.
Atmospheric Conditions:
Much like their structures and compositions, the atmospheres and weather patterns of the four gas/ice giants are quite similar. The primary difference is that the atmospheres get progressively cooler the farther away they are from Sun. As a result, each Jovian planet has distinct cloud layers who’s altitudes are determined by their temperatures, such that the gases can condense into liquid and solid states.
In short, since Saturn is colder than Jupiter at any particular altitude, its cloud layers occur deeper within it’s atmosphere. Uranus and Neptune, due to their even lower temperatures, are able to hold condensed methane in their very cold tropospheres, whereas Jupiter and Saturn cannot.
The presence of this methane is what gives Uranus and Neptune their hazy blue color, where Jupiter is orange-white in appearance due to the intermingling of hydrogen (which gives off a red appearance), while the upwelling of phosphorus, sulfur, and hydrocarbons yield spotted patches areas and ammonia crystals create white bands.
Jupiter and Saturn have similar appearances, owing to their similar compositions and atmospheres. Credit: NASA/GSFC
The atmosphere of Jupiter is classified into four layers based on increasing altitude: the troposphere, stratosphere, thermosphere and exosphere. Temperature and pressure increase with depth, which leads to rising convection cells emerging that carry with them the phosphorus, sulfur, and hydrocarbons that interact with UV radiation to give the upper atmosphere its spotted appearance.
Saturn’s atmosphere is similar in composition to Jupiter’s. Hence why it is similarly colored, though its bands are much fainter and are much wider near the equator (resulting in a pale gold color). As with Jupiter’s cloud layers, they are divided into the upper and lower layers, which vary in composition based on depth and pressure. Both planets also have clouds composed of ammonia crystals in their upper atmospheres, with a possible thin layer of water clouds underlying them.
Uranus’ atmosphere can be divided into three sections – the innermost stratosphere, the troposphere, and the outer thermosphere. The troposphere is the densest layer, and also happens to be the coldest in the solar system. Within the troposphere are layers of clouds, with methane clouds on top, ammonium hydrosulfide clouds, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide clouds, and water clouds at the lowest pressures.
Next is the stratosphere, which contains ethane smog, acetylene and methane, and these hazes help warm this layer of the atmosphere. Here, temperatures increase considerably, largely due to solar radiation. The outermost layer (the thermosphere and corona) has a uniform temperature of 800-850 (577 °C/1,070 °F), though scientists are unsure as to the reason.
Uranus and Neptune, the Solar System’s ice giant planets. Credit: Wikipedia Commons
This is something that Uranus shares with Neptune, which also experiences unusually high temperatures in its thermosphere (about 750 K (476.85 °C/890 °F). Like Uranus, Neptune is too far from the Sun for this heat to be generated through the absorption of ultraviolet radiation, which means another heating mechanism is involved.
Neptune’s atmosphere is also predominantly hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane. The presence of methane is part of what gives Neptune its blue hue, although Neptune’s is darker and more vivid. Its atmosphere can be subdivided into two main regions: the lower troposphere (where temperatures decrease with altitude), and the stratosphere (where temperatures increase with altitude).
The lower stratosphere is believed to contain hydrocarbons like ethane and ethyne, which are the result of methane interacting with UV radiation, thus producing Neptune’s atmospheric haze. The stratosphere is also home to trace amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, which are responsible for Neptune’s stratosphere being warmer than that of Uranus.
Weather Patterns:
Like Earth, Jupiter experiences auroras near its northern and southern poles. But on Jupiter, the auroral activity is much more intense and rarely ever stops. These are the result of Jupiter’s intense radiation, it’s magnetic field, and the abundance of material from Io’s volcanoes that react with Jupiter’s ionosphere.
Reprocessed view by Bjorn Jonsson of the Great Red Spot taken by Voyager 1 in 1979 reveals an incredible wealth of detail. Credit: NASA/JPL
Jupiter also experiences violent weather patterns. Wind speeds of 100 m/s (360 km/h) are common in zonal jets, and can reach as high as 620 kph (385 mph). Storms form within hours and can become thousands of km in diameter overnight. One storm, the Great Red Spot, has been raging since at least the late 1600s.
The storm has been shrinking and expanding throughout its history; but in 2012, it was suggested that the Giant Red Spot might eventually disappear. Jupiter also periodically experiences flashes of lightning in its atmosphere, which can be up to a thousand times as powerful as those observed here on the Earth.
Saturn’s atmosphere is similar, exhibiting long-lived ovals now and then that can be several thousands of kilometers wide. A good example is the Great White Spot (aka. Great White Oval), a unique but short-lived phenomenon that occurs once every 30 Earth years. Since 2010, a large band of white clouds called the Northern Electrostatic Disturbance have been observed enveloping Saturn, and is believed to be followed by another in 2020.
The winds on Saturn are the second fastest among the Solar System’s planets, which have reached a measured high of 500 m/s (1800 km/h). Saturn’s northern and southern poles have also shown evidence of stormy weather. At the north pole, this takes the form of a persisting hexagonal wave pattern measuring about 13,800 km (8,600 mi) and rotating with a period of 10h 39m 24s.
Saturn makes a beautifully striped ornament in this natural-color image, showing its north polar hexagon and central vortex. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
The south pole vortex apparently takes the form of a jet stream, but not a hexagonal standing wave. These storms are estimated to be generating winds of 550 km/h, are comparable in size to Earth, and believed to have been going on for billions of years. In 2006, the Cassini space probe observed a hurricane-like storm that had a clearly defined eye. Such storms had not been observed on any planet other than Earth – even on Jupiter.
Uranus’s weather follows a similar pattern where systems are broken up into bands that rotate around the planet, which are driven by internal heat rising to the upper atmosphere. Winds on Uranus can reach up to 900 km/h (560 mph), creating massive storms like the one spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2012. Similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, this “Dark Spot” was a giant cloud vortex that measured 1,700 kilometers by 3,000 kilometers (1,100 miles by 1,900 miles).
Because Neptune is not a solid body, its atmosphere undergoes differential rotation, with its wide equatorial zone rotating slower than the planet’s magnetic field (18 hours vs. 16.1 hours). By contrast, the reverse is true for the polar regions where the rotation period is 12 hours. This differential rotation is the most pronounced of any planet in the Solar System, and results in strong latitudinal wind shear and violent storms.
Reconstruction of Voyager 2 images showing the Great Dar Spot (top left), Scooter (middle), and the Small Dark Spot (lower right). Credit: NASA/JPL
The first to be spotted was a massive anticyclonic storm measuring 13,000 x 6,600 km and resembling the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. Known as the Great Dark Spot, this storm was not spotted five later (Nov. 2nd, 1994) when the Hubble Space Telescope looked for it. Instead, a new storm that was very similar in appearance was found in the planet’s northern hemisphere, suggesting that these storms have a shorter life span than Jupiter’s.
Exoplanets:
Due to the limitations imposed by our current methods, most of the exoplanets discovered so far by surveys like the Kepler space observatory have been comparable in size to the giant planets of the Solar System. Because these large planets are inferred to share more in common with Jupiter than with the other giant planets, the term “Jovian Planet” has been used by many to describe them.
Many of these planets, being greater in mass than Jupiter, have also been dubbed as “Super-Jupiters” by astronomers. Such planets exist at the borderline between planets and brown dwarf stars, the smallest stars known to exist in our Universe. They can be up to 80 times more massive than Jupiter but are still comparable in size, since their stronger gravity compresses the material into an ever denser, more compact sphere.
Artist’s concept of the “Hot Jupiter” exoplanet HD 149026b. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Those Super-Jupiters that have distant orbits from their parent stars are known as “Cold Jupiters”, whereas those that have close orbits are called “Hot Jupiters”. A surprising number of Hot Jupiters have been observed by exoplanet surveys, due to the fact that they are particularly easy to spot using the Radial Velocity method – which measures the oscillation of parent stars due to the influence of their planets.
In the past, astronomers believed that Jupiter-like planets could only form in the outer reaches of a star system. However, the recent discovery of many Jupiter-sized planets orbiting close to their stars has cast doubt on this. Thanks to the discovery of Jovians beyond our Solar System, astronomers may be forced to rethink our models of planetary formation.
Since Galileo first observed Jupiter through his telescope, Jovian planets have been an endless source of fascination for us. And despite many centuries of research and progress, there are still many things we don’t know about them. Our latest effort to explore Jupiter, the Juno Mission, is expected to produce some rather interesting finds. Here’s hoping they bring us one step closer to understanding those darn Jovians!
The Moon occults Jupiter on July 15th, 2012. Image credit and copyright: Ziad el Zaatari.
So, are you catching sight of the waxing crescent Moon returning this week to the early PM sky? The start of lunation 1157 gives folks observing Ramadan here in Morocco a reason to celebrate, as it marks the end of dawn-to-dusk fasting. Follow that Moon, as it’s about to meet up with the king of the planets this weekend.
On July 9th, the 5-day old waxing crescent Moon will pass Jupiter. You can see ’em both Saturday night, high in the western sky at dusk. For a very few observers in the southern Indian Ocean and Antarctica, the Moon will actually occult (pass in front of) Jupiter, centered on 10:11 Universal Time (UT). The Moon will be 32% illuminated crescent during the pass, and Jupiter will present a disk 34” across, just over a month past quadrature on June 4th with a current elongation of 60 degrees east of the Sun. Jupiter just passed opposition for 2016 on March 8th, and is now headed towards solar conjunction on the far side of the Sun on September 26th.
The occultation footprint for the July 9th event. Image credit: Occult 4.2 software.
2016 Planetary Occultations
This is the first of four occultations of Jupiter by the Moon in 2016; the next occur over subsequent lunations on August 6th, September 2nd and 30th before the relative motions of the Moon and Jupiter carry them apart, not to meet again until October 31st, 2019. And though most observers will miss this weekend’s occultation, we’ll all get a good view of the pairing worldwide. Unfortunately, the view gets successively worse (though more central) for the next few lunations, as the occultations of Jupiter by the Moon occur close to the Sun.
Looking west on the evening of July 9th. Image credit: Stellarium.
Here’s another reason to celebrate and show off Jupiter at this weekend’s star party: NASA’s Juno spacecraft has just entered orbit around the gas giant world. This is only the second time a mission has orbited Jupiter (the first was Galileo) though lots have performed brief flybys, using the enormous pull of the planet for a gravitational boost en route to elsewhere. Juno is currently the only spacecraft in operation around Jove, and will conduct 36 looping science orbits around the planet before meeting its fiery end in February 2018.
A montage of daytime planets (and one Moon and one star). Image credit and copyright: Shahrin Ahmad (@shahgazer).
Yay, humans. Here’s another feat of visual athletics you can attempt this weekend: can you spy Jupiter near the waxing crescent Moon… in the daytime? It’s not that tough, if you know exactly where to look. Deep blue skies for maxim contrast are key, and don’t be afraid to cheat a bit and use binoculars or a wide-field DSLR shot to tease bashful Jupiter out of the daytime sky. Your best bet might be to start hunting for Jupiter 30 minutes prior to local sunset. Hey, if the Sun is still above the local horizon, it still counts! We’ve actually managed to nab Jupiter and Venus before sundown at public star parties on occasion, kicking things off a bit early.
Hunting for Jupiter in the daytime on July 9th. Image credit: Starry Night
Now for the ‘wow’ factor. The Moon is 3,474 kilometers across, and on average, 400,000 kilometers or 1.25 light seconds distant. Jupiter, at 140,000 kilometers across, is currently 5.9 Astronomical Units (AU) or 880 million kilometers away, 2,200 times more distant at 49 light minutes away. You could fit Jupiter and all of the other planets in the solar system – excluding Saturn’s rings — between the Earth and the Moon… not that you’d want such mayhem, of course. Hey; then, for the very first time in the history of human astronomy, Jupiter could occult our puny Moon…
Occultations are abruptly swift affairs in a glacially slow universe. The leading edge of the Moon moves about 30” a minute, taking 17 seconds to cover the disk of Jove. Follow Jupiter this summer, as it’ll pass just 4′ from Venus in the dusk sky on August 27th.
More to come on that soon. Here’s a final thought: has anyone ever tried to observe a radio occultation of Jupiter by the Moon? It’s certainly possible, as Jupiter is a prominent amateur radio source, crackling in the sky. And hey, the daytime sky thing wouldn’t be an issue…
We’d be thrilled to hear that, against all odds, someone on a remote windswept island or on a ship in the distant Indian Ocean actually managed to catch this weekend’s occultation!
The rose-coloured star forming region Messier 17, captured by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.. Credit: ESO/Subaru Telescope (NAOJ)/Hubble Space Telescope
Welcome back to Messier Monday! In our ongoing tribute to the great Tammy Plotner, we take a look at the Messier 17 nebula – aka. The Omega Nebula (and a few other names).
In the 18th century, while searching the night sky for comets, French astronomer Charles Messier began noticing a series of “nebulous objects” in the night sky. Hoping to ensure that other astronomers did not make the same mistake, he began compiling a list of these objects,. Known to posterity as the Messier Catalog, this list has come to be one of the most important milestones in the research of Deep Sky objects.
One of these is the star-forming nebula known as Messier 17 – or as it’s more famously known, the Omega Nebula (or Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, and Horseshoe Nebula). Located in the Sagittarius constellation, this beautiful nebula is considered one of the brightest and most massive star-forming regions in our galaxy.
Description:
From its position in space some 5,000 to 6,000 light years from Earth, the “Omega” nebula occupies a region as large as 40 light years across, with its brightest porition covering a 15 light year expanse. Like many nebulae, this giant cosmic cloud of interstellar matter is a starforming region in the Sagittarius or Sagittarius-Carina arm of our Milky Way galaxy.
What you see is the hot hydrogen gas that is illuminated when its particles are excited by the hottest of the stars that have just formed within the nebula. Also, some of the light is being reflected by the nebula’s own dust. These remain hidden by dark obscuring material, and we know their presence only through the detection of their infrared radiation.
Image of M17 showing specific elements based on their color, including sulfur (red), hydrogen (green), oxygen (blue). Credit: NASA/Ignacio de la Cueva Torregrosa
“We report the discovery of six infrared stellar-wind bowshocks in the Galactic massive star formation regions M17 and RCW49 from Spitzer GLIMPSE (Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire) images. The InfraRed Array Camera (IRAC) on the Spitzer Space Telescope clearly resolves the arc-shaped emission produced by the bowshocks. We use the stellar SEDs to estimate the spectral types of the three newly-identified O stars in RCW49 and one previously undiscovered O star in M17. One of the bowshocks in RCW49 reveals the presence of a large-scale flow of gas escaping the HII region. Radiation-transfer modeling of the steep rise in the SED of this bowshock toward longer mid-infrared wavelengths indicates that the emission is coming principally from dust heated by the star driving the shock. The other 5 bowshocks occur where the stellar winds of O stars sweep up dust in the expanding HII regions.”
Is Messier 17 still actively producing stars? You bet. Even protostars have been discovered hiding in its folds. As M. Nielbock (et al), wrote in 2008:
“For the first time, we resolve the elongated central infrared emission of the large accretion disk in M 17 into a point-source and a jet-like feature that extends to the northeast. We regard the unresolved emission as to originate from an accreting intermediate to high-mass protostar. In addition, our images reveal a weak and curved southwestern lobe whose morphology resembles that of the previously detected northeastern one. We interpret these lobes as the working surfaces of a recently detected jet interacting with the ambient medium at a distance of 1700 AU from the disk centre. The accreting protostar is embedded inside a circumstellar disk and an envelope causing a visual extinction. This and its K-band magnitude argue in favour of an intermediate to high-mass object, equivalent to a spectral type of at least B4. For a main-sequence star, this would correspond to a stellar mass of 4 M.”
The location of the Omega Nebula, with other Messier objects and major stars shown. Image: Wikisky
How many new stars lay hidden inside? Far more than the famous Orion nebula may contain. So says a 2013 study produced by L. Eisa (et al):
“The complex resembles the Orion Nebula/KL region seen nearly edge-on: the bowl-shaped ionization blister is eroding the edge of the clumpy molecular cloud and triggering massive star formation, as evidenced by an ultra-compact HII region and luminous protostars. Only the most massive members of the young NGC 6618 stellar cluster exciting the nebula have been characterized, due to the comparatively high extinction. Near-infrared imagery and spectroscopy reveal an embedded cluster of about 100 stars earlier than B9. These studies did not cover the entire cluster, so even more early stars may be present. This is substantially richer than the Orion Nebula Cluster which has only 8 stars between O6 and B9.”
History of Observation:
The Omega Nebula was first discovered by Philippe Loys de Cheseaux and is just one of the six nebulae in his documents. As he wrote of his discovery:
“Finally, another nebula, which has never been observed. It is of a completely different shape than the others: It has perfectly the form of a ray, or of the tail of a comet, of 7′ length and 2′ broadth; its sides are exactly parallel and rather well terminated, as are its two ends. Its middle is whiter than the border.” Because De Cheseaux’s work wasn’t widely read, Charles Messier independently rediscovered it on June 3, 1764 and cataloged it in his own way: “In the same night, I have discovered at little distance of the cluster of stars of which I just have told, a train of light of five or six minutes of arc in extension, in the shape of a spindle, and in almost the same as that in the girdle of Andromeda; but of a very faint light, not containing any star; one can see two of them nearby which are telescopic and placed parallel to the Equator: in a good sky one perceives very well that nebula with an ordinary refractor of 3 feet and a half. I have determined its position in right ascension of 271d 45′ 48″, and its declination of 16d 14′ 44” south.“
Omega Nebula sketch by John Herschel, 1833. Credit: messier-objects.com
By historical accounts, it was Sir William Herschel who may have truly had a little bit of insight on what this object might one day mean when he observed it on his own and reported:
“1783, July 31. A very singular nebula; it seems to be the link to join the nebula in Orion to others, for this is not without a possibility of being stars. I think a great deal more of light and a much higher power would be of service. 1784, June 22 (Sw. 231). A wonderful nebula. Very much extended, with a hook on the preceding [Western] side; the nebulosity of the milky kind; several stars visible in it, but they seem to have no connection with the nebula, which is far more distant. I saw it only through short intervals of flying clouds and haziness; but the extent of the light including the hook is above 10′. I suspect besides, that on the following [Eastern] side it goes on much farther and diffuses itself towards the north and south. It is not of equal brightness throughout and has one or more places where the milky nebulosity seems to degenerate into the resolvable [mottled] kind; such a one is that just following the hook towards the north. Should this be confirmed on a very fine night, it would bring on the step between these two nebulosities which is at present wanting, and would lead us to surmise that this nebula is a stupendous stratum of immensely distant fixed stars, some of whose branches come near enough to us to be visible as a resolvable nebulosity, while the rest runs on to so great a distance as only to appear under the milky form.”
So where did the name “Omega Nebula” come from? That credit goes to John Herschel, who stated in his observing notes:
“The figure of this nebula is nearly that of the Greek capital Omega, somewhat distorted and very unequally bright. It is remarkable that this is the form usually attributed to the great nebula in Orion, though in that nebula I confess I can discern no resemblence whatever to the Greek letter. Messier perceived only the bright preceding branch of the nebula now in question, without any of the attached convolutions which were first noticed by my Father. The chief peculiarities which I have observed in it are, 1st, the resolvable knot in the following portion of the bright branch, which is in a considerable degree insulated from the surrounding nebula; strongly suggesting the idea of an absorption of nebulous matter; and 2ndly, the much feebler and smaller knot in the north preceding end of the same branch, where the nebula makes a sudden bend at an acute angle. With a view to a more exact representation of this curious nebula, I have at different times taken micrometrical measures of the relative places of the stars in and near it, by which, when laid down on the chart, its limits may be traced and identified, as I hope soon to have better opportunity to do than its low situation in this latitudes will permit.”
Infrared images of M17, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Povich (Univ. of Wisconsin)
Locating Messier 17:
Because M17 is both large and quite bright, its distinctive “2” shape isn’t hard to make out in optics of any size. For binoculars and image correct finderscopes, try starting with the constellation of Aquila and begin tracing the stars down the eagle’s back to Lambda. When you reach that point, continue to extend the line through to Alpha Scuti, then southwards towards Gamma Scuti. M16 is slightly more than 2 degrees (about a fingerwidth) southwest of this star.
If you are in a dark sky location, you can also identify it easily in binoculars by starting at the M24 “Star Cloud”, north of Lambda Sagittari (the teapot lid star), and simply scanning north. This nebula is bright enough to even cut through moderately light polluted skies with ease, but don’t expect to see it when the Moon is nearby. You’ll enjoy the rich starfields combined with an interesting nebula in binoculars, while telescopes will easily begin resolving the interior stars.
And here are the quick facts on M17 for your convenience:
Object Name: Messier 17 Alternative Designations: M17, NGC 6618, Omega, Swan, Horseshoe, or Lobster Nebula Object Type: Open Star Cluster with Emission Nebula Constellation: Sagittarius Right Ascension: 18 : 20.8 (h:m) Declination: -16 : 11 (deg:m) Distance: 5.0 (kly) Visual Brightness: 6.0 (mag) Apparent Dimension: 11.0 (arc min)
And be sure to enjoy this video from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) that shows this nebula in all its glory:
The Andromeda Galaxy, viewed using conventional optics and IR. Credit: Kitt Peak National Observatory
Imagine, if you will, that the Universe was once a much dirtier place than it is today. Imagine also that what we see around us, a relatively clean and unobscured Universe, is the result of billions of years of stars behaving like giant celestial Roombas, cleaning up the space around them in preparation for our arrival. According to a set of recently published catalogues, which detail the latest findings from the ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory, this description is actually quite fitting.
These catalogues represents the work of an international team of over 100 astronomers who have spent the past seven years analyzing the infrared images taken by the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (Herschel-ATLAS). Presented earlier this week at the National Astronomy Meeting in Nottingham, this catalogue revealed that 1 billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe looked much different than it does today.
In order to put this research into context, it is important to understand the important of infrared astronomy. Prior to the deployment of missions like Herschel (which was launched in 2009), astronomers were unable to see a good portion of the light emitted by stars and galaxies. With roughly half of this light being absorbed by interstellar dust grains, research into the birth and lives of galaxies was difficult.
But thanks to surveys like Herschel ATLAS – as well NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) – astronomers have been able to account for this missing energy. And what they have seen (especially from this latest survey) has been quite remarkable, presenting a Universe that is far denser than previously expected.
Artist’s impression of the Herschel Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/AOES Medialab/NASA/ESA/STScI
Professor Haley Gomez of Cardiff University presented this catalogue during the third day of the National Astronomy Meeting (which ran from June 27th to July 1st). As she told Universe Today via email:
“The Herschel survey is the largest one of the sky in these special infrared light. Because of this we see rare objects that we might not see in a smaller patch of sky, but also we now see hundreds of thousands of dusty galaxies, compared to the few hundred we saw in previous telescopes. So this is a massive improvement in terms of knowing what kinds of galaxies there are. Some of these are so covered in dust we might never had seen them using visible light telescopes. Because of the unprecedented large area we have with this Herschel survey, we see a huge variety in the type of objects too, from nearby dusty star forming clouds, to nearby dusty galaxies like Andromeda, to galaxies that shone their infrared light more than 12 billion years ago. We can also use this survey to understand the structure of galaxies in the universe – the so-called cosmic web in a way we’ve never been able to do in the far infrared.”
The images they showed gave all those present a glimpse of the unseen stars and galaxies that have existed over the last 12 billion years of cosmic history. In sum, over half-a-million far-infrared sources have been spotted by the Herschel-ATLAS survey. Many of these sources were galaxies that are nearby and similar to our own, and which are detectable using using conventional telescopes.
The others were much more distant, their light taking billions of years to reach us, and were obscured by concentrations of cosmic dust. The most distant of these galaxies were roughly 12 billion light-years away, which means that they appeared as they would have 12 billion years ago.
Herschel fig2smallAn illustration of the time reach of the Herschel ATLAS and the kinds of objects it has discovered. Credit: Herschel-ATLAS/ESA/ALMA/ NRAO
Ergo, astronomers now know that 12 billion years ago (i.e. shortly after the Big Bang)., stars and galaxies were much dustier than they are now. They further concluded that the evolution of our galaxies since shortly after the Big Bang has essentially been a major clean-up effort, as stars gradually absorbed the dust that obscured their light, thus making it the more “visible” place it is today.
The data released by the survey includes several maps and additional files which were described in an article produced by Dr. Elisabetta Valiante and a research team from Cardiff University – titled “The Herschel-ATLAS Data Release 1 Paper I: Maps, Catalogues and Number Counts“. As Dr. Valiante told Universe Today via email:
“Gas and dust are the main components of stars: they collapse to form stars and they are ejected at the end of stars’ life. The interesting thing that has been discovered thanks to the Herschel data is that the two phenomena are not in equilibrium. We knew this was true 10 billion years ago, but we expected, according to the current models, that some equilibrium was reached at more recent times. Instead, the amount of dust in galaxies 5 billion years ago was much larger than the amount we see in galaxies today: this was unexpected.”
Until recently, such a survey would have been impossible due to the fact that many of these infrared sources would have been invisible to astronomers. The reason for this, which was revealed by the survey, was that these galaxies were so dusty that they would have been virtually impossible to detect with conventional optics. What’s more, their light would have been gravitationally magnified by intervening galaxies.
Infrared images (like the one captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope here) show countless stars and galaxies that are obscured in visible-light by cosmic dust. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The huge size of the survey has also meant that changes that have occurred in galaxies – relatively recent in cosmic history – can be studied for the first time. For instance, the survey showed that even only one billion years in the past, a small fraction of the age of the universe, galaxies were forming stars at a faster rate and contained more dust than they do today.
Dr. Nathan Bourne – from the University of Edinburgh – is the lead author of another other paper describing the catalogues. As he told Universe Today via email:
“We can think of galaxies as big recycling machines. When they form, they accrete gas (mostly hydrogen and helium, with traces of lithium and a couple of other elements) from the universe around them, and they turn it into stars. As time goes on, the stars pump this gas back out into the galaxy, into the interstellar medium. Due to the nuclear processes within the stars, the gas is now enriched by heavy elements (what we call metals, though they include both metals and non-metals), and some of these form microscopic solid particles of dust, as a sort of by-product.
“But there are still stars forming, and the next generations of stars recycle this interstellar material, and now that it contains heavy elements and dust, things are a bit different, and planets can also form around the new stars, from accumulations of this heavy material. So, if you look at the big picture, when the first galaxies started forming within the first billion years after the Big Bang, they began using up the gas around them, and then while they are active they fill their interstellar medium up with gas and dust, but by the end of a galaxy’s lifecycle, it has used up all this gas and dust, and you could say that it has cleaned itself.”
The catalogues and maps of the hidden universe are a triumph for the Herschel team. Despite the fact that the last information obtained by the Herschel observatory was back in 2013, the maps and catalogues produced from its years of service have become vital to astronomers. In addition to showing the Universe’s hidden energy, they are also laying the groundwork for future research.
IR images of the entire sky take by the WISE All-Sky Data Release (top), and a projection of the IR sky created by images taken by the COBE spacecraft (bottom). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA (top), NASA/DIRBE Team/COBE/ (bottom)
“Now we need to explain why there is dust where we did not expect to find it.” said Valiante. “And to explain this, we need to change our theories about how the Universe evolves. Our data poses a challenge we have accepted, but we haven’t overcome it yet!”
“[W]e understand a lot more about how galaxies evolve,” added Bourne, “about when most of the stars formed, what happens to the gas and dust as galaxies evolve, and how rapidly the star-forming activity in the Universe as a whole has faded in the latter half of the Universe’s history. It’s fair to say that this understanding comes from having a whole suite of different types of instruments studying different aspects of galaxies in complementary ways, but Herschel has certainly contributed a major part of that effort and will have a lasting legacy.”
Ensuring Herschel’s lasting legacy is one of the main aims of the Herschel Extragalactic Project (HELP) program, which is overseen by the EU Research Executive Agency. Other projects they oversee include the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES), which also released survey data late last month. All of this has left a lasting mark on the field of astronomy, despite the fact that Herschel is no longer in operation. As Professor Gomez said of the Herschel Observatory’s enduring contributions:
“The Herschel Space Observatory stopped taking data in 2013, yet our understanding of the dusty universe is really only just starting with the release of large surveys and galaxy catalogues in recent months. Ultimately, once astronomers have gone through all the valuable data, Herschel will have provided a view of the infrared universe covering 1000 square degrees of the sky.”
The implications of these findings are also likely to have a far-reaching effect, ranging from cosmology and astronomy, to perhaps shedding some light on that tricky Fermi paradox. Could it be intelligent life that emerged billions of years ago didn’t venture to other star systems because they couldn’t see them? Just a thought…
Sunset over Naples, Florida. Image credit: Dave Dickinson
Having a great July 4th? The day gives us another cause to celebrate, as the Earth reaches aphelion today, or our farthest point to our host star.
Aphelion is the opposite of the closest point of the year, known as perihelion. Note that the ‘helion’ part only applies to things in solar orbit, perigee/apogee for orbit ’round the Earth, apolune/perilune for orbit around the Moon, and so on. You’ll hear the words apijove and perijove bandied about this week a bit, as NASA’s Juno spacecraft enters orbit around Jupiter tonight. And there are crazier and even more obscure counterparts out there, such as peribothron and apobothron (orbiting a black hole) and apastron/periastron (orbiting a star other than our Sun). And finally, there’s the one-size fits all generic periapsis and apoapsis, good for all occasions and ending pedantic arguments.
In the 21st century, aphelion for the Earth can actually fall anywhere from July 2nd to the 7th. The once every four year leap day is the primary driver in this oscillation, and the exclusion of a century leap day in 2100 — the first such exclusion since 1900 — will reset things even farther astray.
Aphelion versus perihelion. (orbits exaggerated). Image credit: NOAA/NASA.
In 2016, the Moon reaches New on July 4th at 11:01 Universal Time (UT) just over five hours prior to aphelion, marking the start of lunation 1157. The sighting of the waxing crescent Moon also marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Earth reaches aphelion at 16:24 UT today, 1.0168 AU from the Sun. This year’s close occurrence of aphelion versus a New Moon won’t get topped until 2054, with an aphelion versus New Moon just 5 hours 6 minutes apart. The 2016 coincidence is also the closest since the start of the 21st century.
Fun fact: we’re headed towards an aphelion maximum just 6,590 kilometers off of the mean on July 4th, 2019, the widest for the 21st century. Mean distance from the Sun at aphelion is 1.0167 AU (152,097,701 km). Aphelion for the Earth can range over a variation of 21,225 kilometers for the 21st century.
It’s a happy circumstance that Earth reaches aphelion in our current epoch in the midst of northern hemisphere summer, and just a few weeks after the June solstice. The eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit actually varies from near-circular to 0.0679 and back over the span of 413,000 years. In our current epoch, the eccentricity of our orbit is 0.017 and decreasing. Add this variation to changes in the axial tilt of our planet and orbital obliquity, and you have what are known as Milankovitch Cycles. One only has to look at Mars’s wacky orbit with an eccentricity of 0.0934 to see what a difference it makes. Ironically, Mars reaches perihelion in October 29th, 2016, and will make a very close pass near next opposition pass in 2018.
The orbits of Mercury, Earth and Mars compared. image credit: NASA
Want to prove it for yourself? You can indeed ‘observe’ aphelion. The trick is to image the solar disk using the same rig and settings… about six months apart. At aphelion, the solar disk is 31.6′ across, versus 32.7′ across at perihelion. This variation is slight, but you can indeed see the subtle difference side by side:
The Sun as seen from the Earth: perihelion vs aphelion. The red circles are the size of the opposing solar disk transposed on the other. Image credit: Dave Dickinson.
Aphelion means a smaller apparent Sun, a good target for a total solar eclipse. Stick around until July 2nd, 2019 and you’ll see just that, as a total solar eclipse occurs near aphelion for South America and the southern Pacific at 4 minutes and 33 seconds in central duration.
Aphelion versus perihelion 2008. Image credit and copyright: Alex Conu.
This month also sees another special treat, as all classical planets enter the evening sky.
More to come on that soon. For now, happy 4th of July, and merry aphelion!
NASA's Juno spacecraft launched on August 6, 2011 and should arrive at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Credit: NASA / JPL
Ever since Galileo first observed it through a telescope in 1610, Jupiter and its system of moons have fascinated humanity. And while many spacecraft have visited the system in the past forty years, the majority of these missions were flybys. With the exception of the Galileo space probe, the visits of these spacecraft to the Jupiter system were one of several intended objectives, taking place before they made their way deeper into the Solar System.
Having launched on August 5th, 2011, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has a different purpose in mind. Using a suite of scientific instruments, Juno will study Jupiter’s atmosphere, magnetic environment, weather patterns, and shed light on the history of its formation. In essence, it will be the first probe since the Galileo mission to orbit Jupiter, where it will spend the next two years sending information about the gas giant back to Earth.
If successful, Juno will prove to be the only other long-term mission to Jupiter. However, compared to Galileo – which spent seven years in orbit around the gas giant – Juno’s mission is planned to last for just two years. However, its improved suite of instruments are expected to provide a wealth of information in that time. And barring any mission extensions, its targeted impact on the surface of Jupiter will take place in February of 2018.
Juno will dive between the planet and its intense belts of charged particle radiation, coming within 5,000 kilometers (about 3,000 miles) from the cloud tops. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Background:
As part of the NASA’s New Frontiers program, the Juno mission is one of several medium-sized missions intended to explore the various bodies of the Solar System. It is currently one of three probes that NASA is operating, or in the process of building. The other two are the New Horizons probe (which flew by Pluto in 2015) and OSIRIS-REx, which is expected to fly to asteroid 101955 Bennu in 2020 and bring samples back to Earth.
During a 2003 decadal survey – titled “New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy” – The National Research Council discussed destinations that would serve as the source for the first competition for the New Frontiers program. A Jupiter orbiter was identified as a scientific priority, which it was hoped would address several unanswered questions pertaining to the gas giant.
These included whether or not Jupiter had a central core (the research of which would help establish how the planet was formed), the water content of Jupiter’s atmosphere, how its weather systems can remain stable, and what the nature of the magnetic field and plasma surrounding Jupiter are. In 2005, Juno was selected for the New Frontiers program alongside New Horizons and OSIRIS-REx.
Though it was originally intended to launch in 2009, NASA budget restrictions forced a delay until August of 2011. The probe was named in honor of the Roman goddess Juno, the wife of Jupiter (the Roman equivalent of Zeus) who was able to peer through a veil of clouds that Jupiter drew around himself. The name was previously a backronym which stood for JUpiter Near-polar Orbiter as well.
Mission Profile:
The Juno mission was created for the specific purpose of studying Jupiter for the sake of learning more about the formation of the Solar System. For some time, astronomers have understood that Jupiter played an important role in the development Solar System. Like the other gas giants, it was assembled during the early stages, before our Sun had the chance to absorb or blow away the light gases in the huge cloud from which they were born.
As such, Jupiter’s composition could tell us much about the early Solar System. Similarly, the gas giants are believed to have played a major role in the process of planet formation because their huge masses allowed them to shape the orbits of other objects – planets, asteroids and comets – in their planetary systems.
However, for astronomers and planetary scientists, much still remains unknown about this massive gas giant. For instance, Jupiter’s interior structure and composition, as well as what drives its magnetic field, are still the subject of theory. Because Jupiter formed at the same time as the Sun, their chemical compositions should be similar, but research has shown that Jupiter has more heavy elements than our Sun (such as carbon and nitrogen).
In addition, there are some unanswered questions about when and where the planet formed. While it may have formed in its current orbit, some evidence suggests that it could have formed farther from the sun before migrating inward. All of these questions, it is hoped, are things the Juno mission will answer.
Having launched on August 5th, 2011, the Juno spacecraft spent the next five years in space, and will reach Jupiter on July 4th, 2018. Once in orbit, it will spend the next two years orbiting the planet a total of 37 times from pole to pole, using its scientific instruments to probe beneath the gas giant’s obscuring cloud cover.
Instrumentation:
The Juno spacecraft comes equipped with a scientific suite of 8 instruments that will allow it to study Jupiter’s atmosphere, magnetic and gravitational field, weather patterns, its internal structure, and its formational history. They include:
Gravity Science: Using radio waves and measuring them for Doppler effect, this instrument will measure the distribution of mass inside Jupiter to create a gravity map. Small variations in gravity along the orbital path of the probe will induce small changes in velocity. The principle investigators of this instrument are John Anderson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Luciano Iess of the Sapienza University of Rome.
JunoCam: This visible light/telescope is the spacecraft’s only imaging device. Intended for public outreach and education, it will provide breathtaking pictures of Jupiter and the Solar System, but will operate for only seven orbits around Jupiter (due to the effect Jupiter’s radiation and magnetic field have on instruments). The PI for this instrument is Michael C. Malin, of Malin Space Science Systems
Jovian Auroral Distribution Experiment (JADE): Using three energetic particle detectors, the JADE instrument will measure the angular distribution, energy, and velocity vector of low energy ions and electrons in the auroras of Jupiter. The PI is David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).
Jovian Energetic Particle Detector Instrument (JEDI): Like JADE, JEDI will measure the angular distribution and the velocity vector of ions and electrons, but at high-energy and in the magnetosphere of Jupiter. The PI is Barry Mauk of NASA’s Applied Physics Laboratory.
Juno spacecraft and its science instruments. Credit: NASA/JPL
Jovian Infrared Aural Mapper (JIRAM): Operating in the near-infrared, this spectrometer will be responsible for mapping the upper layers of Jupiter’s atmosphere. By measuring the heat that is radiated outward, it will determine how water-rich clouds can float beneath the surface. It will also be able to assess the distribution of methane, water vapor, ammonia and phosphine in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Angioletta Coradini of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics is the PI on this instrument.
Magnetometer: This instrument will be used to map Jupiter’s magnetic field, determine the dynamics of the planet’s interior and determine the three-dimensional structure of the polar magnetosphere. Jack Connemey of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is the instrument’s PI.
Microwave Radiometer: The MR instrument will perform measurements of the electromagnetic waves that pass through the Jovian atmosphere, measuring the abundance of water and ammonia in its deep layers. In so doing, it will obtain a temperature profile at various levels and determine how deep the atmospheric circulation of Jupiter is. The PI for this instrument is Mike Janssen of the JPL.
Radio and Plasma Wave Sensor (RPWS): This RPWS will measure the radio and plasma spectra in Jupiter’s auroral region. In the process, it will identify the regions of auroral currents that define the planet’s radio emissions and accelerate its auroral particles. William Kurth of the University of Iowa is the PI.
Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVS): The UVS will record the wavelength, position and arrival time of detected ultraviolet photons, providing spectral images of the UV auroral emissions in the polar magnetosphere. G. Randall Gladstone of the SwRI is the PI.
In addition to its scientific suite, the Juno spacecraft also carries a commemorative plaque dedicated to Galileo Galilei. The plaque was provided by the Italian Space Agency and depicts a portrait of Galileo, as well as script that had been composed by Galileo himself on the occasion that he observed Jupiter’s four largest moons (known today as the Galilean Moons).
The Galileo plague aboard the Juno spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/KSC
The text, written in Italian and transcribed from Galileo’s own handwriting, translates as:
“On the 11th it was in this formation, and the star closest to Jupiter was half the size than the other and very close to the other so that during the previous nights all of the three observed stars looked of the same dimension and among them equally afar; so that it is evident that around Jupiter there are three moving stars invisible till this time to everyone.”
The spacecraft also carries three Lego figurines representing Galileo, the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno. The figure of Juno holds a magnifying glass as a sign of her searching for the truth, Jupiter holds a lightning bolt, and the figure of Galileo Galilei holds his famous telescope. Lego made these figurines out of aluminum (instead of the usual plastic) to ensure they would survive the extreme conditions of space flight.
Launch:
The Juno mission launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5th, 2011, atop an Atlas V rocket. After approximately 1 minute and 33 seconds, the five Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) reached burnout and then fell away. After 4 minutes and 26 seconds after liftoff, the Atlas V main engine cut off, followed 16 seconds later by the separation of the Centaur upper stage rocket.
After a burn that lasted for 6 minutes, the Centaur was put into its initial parking orbit. It coasted for approximately 30 minutes before its engine conducted a second firing which lasted for 9 minutes, putting the spacecraft on an Earth escape trajectory. About 54 minutes after launch, the spacecraft separated from the Centaur and began to extend its solar panels.
A year after launch, between August and September 2012, the Juno spacecraft successfully conducted two Deep Space Maneuvers designed to correct its trajectory. The first maneuver (DSM-1) occurred on August 30th, 2012, with the main engine firing for approximately 30 minutes and altering its velocity by about 388 m/s (1396.8 km/h; 867 mph).
The second maneuver (DSM-2), which had a similar duration and resulted in a similar velocity change, took place on September 14th. The two firings occurred when the probe was about 480 million km (298 million miles) from Earth, and altered the spacecraft’s speed and its Jupiter-bound trajectory, setting the stage for a gravity assist from its flyby of Earth.
Earth Flyby:
Juno’s Earth flyby took place on October 9th, 2013, after the spacecraft completed one elliptical orbit around the Sun. During its closest approach, the probe was at an altitude of about 560 kilometers (348 miles). The Earth flyby boosted Juno’s velocity by 3,900 m/s (14162 km/h; 8,800 mph) and placed the spacecraft on its final flight path for Jupiter.
During the flyby, Juno’s Magnetic Field Investigation (MAG) instrument managed to capture some low-resolution images of the Earth and Moon. These images were taken while the Juno probe was about 966,000 km (600,000 mi) away from Earth – about three times the Earth-moon separation. They were later combined by technicians at NASA’s JPL to create the video shown above.
The Earth flyby was also used as a rehearsal by the Juno science team to test some of the spacecraft’s instruments and to practice certain procedures that will be used once the probe arrives at Jupiter.
Rendezvous With Jupiter:
The Juno spacecraft reached the Jupiter system and established polar orbit around the gas giant on July 4th, 2016. It’s orbit will be highly elliptical and will take it close to the poles – within 4,300 km (2,672 mi) – before reaching beyond the orbit of Callisto, the most distant of Jupiter’s large moons (at an average distance of 1,882,700 km or 1,169,855.5 mi).
This orbit will allow the spacecraft to avoid long-term contact with Jupiter’s radiation belts, while still allowing it to perform close-up surveys of Jupiter’s polar atmosphere, magnetosphere and gravitational field. The spacecraft will spend the next two years orbiting Jupiter a total of 37 times, with each orbit taking 14 days.
Already, the probe has performed measurements of Jupiter’s magnetic field. This began on June 24th when Juno crossed the bow shock just outside Jupiter’s magnetosphere, followed by it’s transit into the lower density of the Jovian magnetosphere on June 25. Having made the transition from an environment characterized by solar wind to one dominated by Jupiter’s magnetosphere, the ship’s instruments revealed some interesting information about the sudden change in particle density.
The probe entered its polar elliptical orbit on July 4th after completing a 35-minute-long firing of the main engine, known as Jupiter Orbital Insertion (or JOI). As the probe approached Jupiter from above its north pole, it was afforded a view of the Jovian system, which it took a final picture of before commencing JOI.
On July 10th, the Juno probe transmitted its first imagery from orbit after powering back up its suite of scientific instruments. The images were taken when the spacecraft was 4.3 million km (2.7 million mi) from Jupiter and on the outbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit. The color image shows atmospheric features on Jupiter, including the famous Great Red Spot, and three of the massive planet’s four largest moons – Io, Europa and Ganymede, from left to right in the image.
While the mission team had hoped to reduce Juno’s orbital period to 14 days, thus allowing for it to conduct a total of 37 perijoves before mission’s end. However, due to a malfunction with the probe’s helium valves, the firing was delayed. NASA has since announced that it will not conduct this engine firing, and that the probe will conduct a total perijoves in total before the end of its mission.
End of Mission:
The Juno mission is set to conclude in February of 2018, after completing 12 orbits of Jupiter. At this point, and barring any mission extensions, the probe will be de-orbited to burn up in Jupiter’s outer atmosphere. As with the Galileo spacecraft, this is meant be to avoid any possibility of impact and biological contamination with one of Jupiter’s moons.
The mission is managed by the JPL, and its principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute. NASA’s Launch Services Program, located at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for managing launch services for the probe. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
As of the writing of this article, the Juno mission is one day, four hours and fifty-five minutes away from its historic arrival with Jupiter. Check out NASA’s Juno mission page to get up-to-date information on the mission, and stay tuned to Universe Today for updates!
Radio image of the night sky. Credit: Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, generated by Glyn Haslam.
One of the defining characteristics of the New Space era is partnerships. Whether it is between the private and public sector, different space agencies, or different institutions across the world, collaboration has become the cornerstone to success. Consider the recent agreement between the Netherlands Space Office (NSO) and the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) that was announced earlier this week.
In an agreement made possible by the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2015 between the Netherlands and China, a Dutch-built radio antenna will travel to the Moon aboard the Chinese Chang’e 4 satellite, which is scheduled to launch in 2018. Once the lunar exploration mission reaches the Moon, it will deposit the radio antenna on the far side, where it will begin to provide scientists with fascinating new views of the Universe.
The radio antenna itself is also the result of collaboration, between scientists from Radboud University, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) and the small satellite company Innovative Solutions in Space (ISIS). After years of research and development, these three organizations have produced an instrument which they hope will usher in a new era of radio astronomy.
Diagram showing how the Chang’e 4 satellite will rotate around a fixed point behind the moon – the second Lagrange, or L2, point in the Earth-moon system. Credit: ru.nl
Essentially, radio astronomy involves the study of celestial objects – ranging from stars and galaxies to pulsars, quasars, masers and the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) – at radio frequencies. Using radio antennas, radio telescopes, and radio interferometers, this method allows for the study of objects that might otherwise be invisible or hidden in other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
One drawback of radio astronomy is the potential for interference. Since only certain wavelengths can pass through the Earth’s atmosphere, and local radio wave sources can throw off readings, radio antennas are usually located in remote areas of the world. A good example of this is the Very-Long Baseline Array (VLBA) located across the US, and the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) under construction in Australia and South Africa.
One other solution is to place radio antennas in space, where they will not be subject to interference or local radio sources. The antenna being produced by Radbound, ASTRON and ISIS is being delivered to the far side of the Moon for just this reason. As the latest space-based radio antenna to be deployed, it will be able to search the cosmos in ways Earth-based arrays cannot, looking for vital clues to the origins of the universe.
As Heino Falke – a professor of Astroparticle Physics and Radio Astronomy at Radboud – explained in a University press release, the deployment of this radio antenna on the far side of the Moon will be an historic achievement:
“Radio astronomers study the universe using radio waves, light coming from stars and planets, for example, which is not visible with the naked eye. We can receive almost all celestial radio wave frequencies here on Earth. We cannot detect radio waves below 30 MHz, however, as these are blocked by our atmosphere. It is these frequencies in particular that contain information about the early universe, which is why we want to measure them.”
The planned Square Kilometer Array will be the world’s largest radio telescope when it begins operations in 2018. Credit: SKA Project Development Office/SAP
As it stands, very little is known about this part of the electromagnetic spectrum. As a result, the Dutch radio antenna could be the first to provide information on the development of the earliest structures in the Universe. It is also the first instrument to be sent into space as part of a Chinese space mission.
Alongside Heino Falcke, Marc Klein Wolt – the director of the Radboud Radio Lab – is one of the scientific advisors for the project. For years, he and Falcke have been working towards the deployment of this radio antenna, and have high hopes for the project. As Professor Wolt said about the scientific package he is helping to create:
“The instrument we are developing will be a precursor to a future radio telescope in space. We will ultimately need such a facility to map the early universe and to provide information on the development of the earliest structures in it, like stars and galaxies.”
Together with engineers from ASTRON and ISIS, the Dutch team has accumulated a great deal of expertise from their years working on other radio astronomy projects, which includes experience working on the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) and the development of the Square Kilometre Array, all of which is being put to work on this new project.
A radio antenna on the far side of the Moon will enable deep space surveys that were never before possible. Credit: NASA Goddard
Other tasks that this antenna will perform include monitoring space for solar storms, which are known to have a significant impact on telecommunications here on Earth. With a radio antenna on the far side of the Moon, astronomers will be able to better predict such events and prepare for them in advance.
Another benefit will be the ability to measure strong radio pulses from gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, which will help us to learn more about their rotational speed. Combined with the recent ESO efforts to map Jupiter at IR frequencies, and the data that is already arriving from the Juno mission, this data is likely to lead to some major breakthroughs in our understanding of this mysterious planet.
Last, but certainly not least, the Dutch team wants to create the first map of the early Universe using low-frequency radio data. This map is expected to take shape after two years, once the Moon has completed a few full rotations around the Earth and computer analysis can be completed.
It is also expected that such a map will provide scientists with additional evidence that confirms the Standard Model of Big Bang cosmology (aka. the Lambda CDM model). As with other projects currently in the works, the results are likely to be exciting and groundbreaking!
