Topic: Planetary Science Institute

NASA’s Juno spacecraft reaches halfway point in Jupiter mission

December 13, 2018 |

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

Pasadena, CA – On December 21st, at 8:49:48am PST (10:49:48am CST) NASA’s Juno spacecraft will be 3,140 miles (5,053 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops and hurtling by at a healthy clip of 128,802 mph (207,287 kilometers per hour). This will be the 16^th science pass of the gas giant and will mark the solar-powered spacecraft’s halfway point in data collection during its prime mission.

Juno is in a highly-elliptical 53-day orbit around Jupiter. Each orbit includes a close passage over the planet’s cloud deck, where it flies a ground track that extends from Jupiter’s north pole to its south pole.

A south tropical disturbance has just passed Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot, and is captured stealing threads of orange haze from the Great Red Spot in this series of color-enhanced images from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstadt/Sean Doran)

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NASA to let Public pick Juno Spacecraft’s next site for Jupiter Photos

January 20, 2017 |

Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Where should NASA’s Juno spacecraft aim its camera during its next close pass of Jupiter on February 2nd? You can now play a part in the decision.

For the first time, members of the public can vote to participate in selecting all pictures to be taken of Jupiter during a Juno flyby. Voting begins Thursday, January 19th at 11:00am PST (2:00pm EST) and concludes on January 23rd at 9:00am PST (noon EST).

“We are looking forward to people visiting our website and becoming part of the JunoCam imaging team,” said Candy Hansen, Juno co-investigator from the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona. “It’s up to the public to determine the best locations in Jupiter’s atmosphere for JunoCam to capture during this flyby.”

This amateur-processed image was taken on Dec. 11, 2016, at 9:27 a.m. PST (12:27 p.m. EST), as NASA’s Juno spacecraft performed its third close flyby of Jupiter. (NASA)

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NASA’s Dawn spacecraft reveals new areas where Ice may hide on Ceres

December 16, 2016 |

Written by Elizabeth Landau
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – At first glance, Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, may not look icy. Images from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft have revealed a dark, heavily cratered world whose brightest area is made of highly reflective salts — not ice.

But newly published studies from Dawn scientists show two distinct lines of evidence for ice at or near the surface of the dwarf planet. Researchers are presenting these findings at the 2016 American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

This graphic shows a theoretical path of a water molecule on Ceres. Some water molecules fall into cold, dark craters called “cold traps,” where very little of the ice turns into vapor, even over the course of a billion years. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

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Volunteers examine NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images to find areas worth further study

October 21, 2016 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Ten thousand volunteers viewing images of Martian south polar regions have helped identify targets for closer inspection, yielding new insights about seasonal slabs of frozen carbon dioxide and erosional features known as “spiders.”

From the comfort of home, the volunteers have been exploring the surface of Mars by reviewing images from the Context Camera (CTX) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and identifying certain types of seasonal terrains near Mars’ south pole.

This image shows spidery channels eroded into Martian ground. It is a Sept. 12, 2016, example from HiRISE camera high-resolution observations of more than 20 places that were chosen in 2016 on the basis of about 10,000 volunteers’ examination of Context Camera lower-resolution views of larger areas. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

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NASA’s Juno spacecraft enters Safe Mode after last Flyby of Jupiter

October 20, 2016 |

Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Juno spacecraft entered safe mode Tuesday, October 18th at about 10:47pm PDT (October 19th at 1:47am EDT). Early indications are a software performance monitor induced a reboot of the spacecraft’s onboard computer. The spacecraft acted as expected during the transition into safe mode, restarted successfully and is healthy.

High-rate data has been restored, and the spacecraft is conducting flight software diagnostics. All instruments are off, and the planned science data collection for today’s close flyby of Jupiter (perijove 2), did not occur.

This artist’s concept depicts the Juno spacecraft above Jupiter. The spacecraft will next fly by the planet on Aug. 27th, in the mission’s first up-close science pass. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Juno Spacecraft takes first pictures from Jupiter Orbit

July 14, 2016 |

Written by DC Agle / Preston Dyches
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – The JunoCam camera aboard NASA’s Juno mission is operational and sending down data after the spacecraft’s July 4th arrival at Jupiter. Juno’s visible-light camera was turned on six days after Juno fired its main engine and placed itself into orbit around the largest planetary inhabitant of our solar system. The first high-resolution images of the gas giant Jupiter are still a few weeks away.

“This scene from JunoCam indicates it survived its first pass through Jupiter’s extreme radiation environment without any degradation and is ready to take on Jupiter,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “We can’t wait to see the first view of Jupiter’s poles.”

This color view from NASA’s Juno spacecraft is made from some of the first images taken by JunoCam after the spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter on July 5th (UTC). (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS)

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NASA Spacecraft images indicate Tsunamis on Mars shaped it’s Coastal areas

May 31, 2016 |

NASA’s Ames Research Center

Moffett Field, CA – New NASA-funded research indicates that giant tsunamis played a fundamental role in forming Martian coastal terrain, removing much of the controversy that for decades shrouded the hypothesis that oceans existed early in Mars’ history.

“Imagine a huge wall of red water the size of a high-rise building moving towards you at the speed of a jetliner,” said J. Alexis P. Rodriguez, former NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and senior research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. “That could be a fair way to picture it in your mind.”

Left: Color-coded digital elevation model of the study area showing the two proposed shoreline levels of an early Mars ocean that existed approximately 3.4 billion years ago. Right: Areas covered by the documented tsunami events extending from these shorelines. (Alexis Rodriguez)

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NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter data reveals most recent Ice Age on Mars

May 27, 2016 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Scientists using radar data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have found a record of the most recent Martian ice age recorded in the planet’s north polar ice cap.

The new results agree with previous models that indicate a glacial period ended about 400,000 years ago, as well as predictions about how much ice would have been accumulated at the poles since then.

The results, published in the May 27th issue of the journal Science, help refine models of the Red Planet’s past and future climate by allowing scientists to determine how ice moves between the poles and mid-latitudes, and in what volumes.

Climatic cycles of ice and dust build the Martian polar caps, season by season, year by year, and periodically whittle down their size when the climate changes. This image is a simulated 3-D perspective view, created from image data taken by the THEMIS instrument on NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft. (NASA/JPL/Arizona State University, R. Luk)

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NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft observes Enceladus plume brighten when farther away from Saturn

May 7, 2016 |

Written by Preston Dyches
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – During a recent stargazing session, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft watched a bright star pass behind the plume of gas and dust that spews from Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. At first, the data from that observation had scientists scratching their heads. What they saw didn’t fit their predictions.

The observation has led to a surprising new clue about the remarkable geologic activity on Enceladus: It appears that at least some of the narrow jets that erupt from the moon’s surface blast with increased fury when the moon is farther from Saturn in its orbit.

The gravitational pull of Saturn changes the amount of particles spraying from the south pole of Saturn’s active moon Enceladus at different points in its orbit. More particles make the plume appear much brighter in the infrared image at left. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Cornell/SSI)

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NASA studies Comet P/2016 BA14 as it passes by Earth

March 26, 2016 |

Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Astronomers were watching when comet P/2016 BA14 flew past Earth on March 22nd. At the time of its closest approach, the comet was about 2.2 million miles (3.5 million kilometers) away, making it the third closest comet flyby in recorded history (see “A ‘Tail’ of Two Comets”). Radar images from the flyby indicate that the comet is about 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) in diameter.

The scientists used the Goldstone Solar System Radar in California’s Mojave Desert to track the comet.

These radar images of comet P/2016 BA14 were taken on March 23, 2016, by scientists using an antenna of NASA’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. At the time, the comet was about 2.2 million miles (3.6 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR)

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