NASA’s interplanetary station «Juno» sent a new series of images of Jupiter taken during the next (already 66th) flyby of the largest planet in the solar system.
The $1 billion spacecraft was launched in 2011, and in 5 years it reached Jupiter’s orbit, covering a distance of 2.8 billion kilometers. Since then, the «probe has been circling the planet, recording important data and sending fantastic images to Earth. During the last flyby, which ended on October 23, 2023, «Juno» also approached Jupiter’s fifth-largest moon, Amalthea (much smaller than the Earth’s satellite, with a radius of 84 km, a shape of «potato» and orbiting closer to Jupiter than Io).
«Juno» is equipped with a two-megapixel visible light camera «JunoCam», as well as a magnetometer for mapping Jupiter’s magnetic field and a microwave radiometer for measuring the content of water and ammonia in the planet’s atmosphere
Among the biggest «hits» recorded by the equipment are the first close-up images of Jupiter’s North Pole. Moreover, they informed the researchers that this unknown region has a central cyclone surrounded by eight more (each with a diameter of about 4 thousand km).
It is noteworthy that the mission does not have a dedicated team of scientists who process the images. Instead, it is done by citizen researchers who upload them to a specialized website.
«Juno» also provided information about the most famous anti-cyclone vortex on Jupiter, known as the «Great Red Spot» — which turned out to be shrinking (the spot was twice as large as Earth in 1979, but now it is only 1.3 times larger). The interplanetary station also found that the storm reaches a depth that is 50-100 times greater than the depth of Earth’s oceans.
The station has performed extremely useful work, but its journey will soon come to an end. Initially, «Juno» was supposed to make 33 flybys by 2017, but the mission was extended until September 2025 — when Jupiter’s gravity «will pull it towards», burying the spacecraft in its chaotic atmosphere.
At the same time, «Juno» has two successors: the European Space Agency’s JUICE spacecraft that will reach the planet’s system in 2031 (with a planned 21st flyby of Jupiter’s moon Callisto), and NASA’s Europa Clipper station, which was launched earlier this month and will reach Jupiter in 2030 to focus on Europe.
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