Getting Ready For 8/21/17

What are comets made of?

Juno reaches Jupiter

Braving intense radiation, a NASA spacecraft reached Jupiter on Monday after a five-year voyage to begin exploring the king of the planets.

Ground controllers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lockheed Martin erupted in applause when the solar-powered Juno spacecraft beamed home news that it was circling Jupiter’s poles.

The arrival at Jupiter was dramatic. As Juno approached its target, it fired its rocket engine to slow itself down and gently slipped into orbit. Because of the communication time lag between Jupiter and Earth, Juno was on autopilot when it executed the tricky move.

“Juno, welcome to Jupiter,” said mission control commentator Jennifer Delavan of Lockheed Martin, which built Juno.

In the coming days, Juno will turn its instruments back on, but the real work won’t begin until late August when the spacecraft swings in closer. Plans called for Juno to swoop within 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) of Jupiter’s clouds – closer than previous missions – to map the planet’s gravity and magnetic fields in order to learn about the interior makeup. (AP)

Photos: (from top) NASA/Damian Peach,  AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, NASA/JPL-Caltech, AP Photo/Terry Renna)

See more images of Juno reaches Jupiter on Yahoo News

Map of Jupiter’s South

This map of Jupiter is the most detailed global color map of the planet ever produced. The round map is a polar stereographic projection that shows the south pole in the center of the map and the equator at the edge. It was constructed from images taken by Cassini on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during a flyby on its way to Saturn. The map shows a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter’s winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial “hot spots,” meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA’s Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar region shown here is less clearly visible because Cassini viewed it at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The Great Comet of 1881  -   Étienne Léopold Trouvelot  1881

French 1827-1895

Vintage illustration, Comet over observatory in night time sky

The Pillars of Creation and Spotting Comet Lovejoy

This week in space news, a new makeover for one of the Hubble Telescope’s most famous images, and tips on spotting Comet Lovejoy in the night sky.

What are comets made of?

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is set to make its first dive through the narrow gap between Saturn and its rings on April 26, 2017. Because that gap is a region no spacecraft has ever explored, Cassini will use its dish-shaped high-gain antenna (13 feet or 4 meters across) as a protective shield while passing through the ring plane. No particles larger than smoke particles are expected, but the precautionary measure is being taken on the first dive. The Cassini team will use data collected by one of the spacecraft’s science instruments (the Radio and Plasma Wave Subsystem, or RPWS) to ascertain the size and density of ring particles in the gap in advance of future dives. As a result of its antenna-forward orientation, the spacecraft will be out of contact with Earth during the dive.

Below is a list of milestones expected to occur during the event, if all goes as planned:

– 5 p.m. PDT (8 p.m. EDT) on April 25: Cassini is approaching Saturn over the planet’s northern hemisphere in advance of its first of 22 planned dives through the gap between the planet and its rings.

– 1:34 a.m. PDT (4:34 a.m. EDT) on April 26: As it passes from north to south over Saturn, Cassini begins a 14-minute turn to point its high-gain antenna into the direction of oncoming ring particles. In this orientation, the antenna acts as a protective shield for Cassini’s instruments and engineering systems.

– 2 a.m. PDT (5 a.m. EDT) on April 26: Cassini crosses the ring plane during its dive between the rings and Saturn. The spacecraft’s science instruments are collecting data, but Cassini is not in contact with Earth at this time.

– No earlier than around midnight PDT on April 26 (3 a.m. EDT on April 27): Earth has its first opportunity to regain contact with Cassini as the giant, 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, listens for the spacecraft’s radio signal.

NASA‘s Juno: spacecraft has successfully entered orbit around the gas giant Jupiter. 

After five years and 1.7 billion miles the probe accomplish a risky braking manoeuvre in order for it to be hooked by Jupiter’s gravity. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California received the confirmation signal which confirmed Juno had finally entered orbit on July 4. Juno will begin a two-year mission of discovery which will help scientists better understand one of the largest objects in our solar system.

Using Juno’s complex array of cameras and sensors the team hope to answer some long-awaited questions including whether Jupiter actually has a solid core or if it really is just a swirling ball of gas. Another focus will be the Great Red Spot - a massive storm several times the size of Earth that has been raging on the surface of Jupiter for what appears to be hundreds of years. Juno is the fastest spacecraft to ever enter orbit around a planet, travelling at an astonishing 130,000mph by the time it reached the gas giant.