NASA's Juno Spacecraft Completes Flyby over Jupiter's Great Red Spot

[baa...@earthlink.net]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6892

NASA's Juno Spacecraft Completes Flyby over Jupiter's Great Red Spot
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
July 11, 2017

NASA's Juno mission completed a close flyby of Jupiter and its Great Red
Spot on July 10, during its sixth science orbit.

All of Juno's science instruments and the spacecraft's JunoCam were operating
during the flyby, collecting data that are now being returned to Earth.
Juno's next close flyby of Jupiter will occur on Sept. 1.

Raw images from the spacecraft's latest flyby will be posted in coming
days.

"For generations people from all over the world and all walks of life
have marveled over the Great Red Spot," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator
of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Now we
are finally going to see what this storm looks like up close and personal."

The Great Red Spot is a 10,000-mile-wide (16,000-kilometer-wide) storm
that has been monitored since 1830 and has possibly existed for more than
350 years. In modern times, the Great Red Spot has appeared to be shrinking.

Juno reached perijove (the point at which an orbit comes closest to Jupiter's
center) on July 10 at 6:55 p.m. PDT (9:55 p.m. EDT). At the time of perijove,
Juno was about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet's cloud
tops. Eleven minutes and 33 seconds later, Juno had covered another 24,713
miles (39,771 kilometers), and was passing directly above the coiling
crimson cloud tops of the Great Red Spot. The spacecraft passed about
5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) above the clouds of this iconic feature.

On July 4 at 7:30 p.m. PDT (10:30 p.m. EDT), Juno logged exactly one year
in Jupiter orbit, marking 71 million miles (114.5 million kilometers)
of travel around the giant planet.

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. During its
mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops --
as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers). During these flybys,
Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying
its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere
and magnetosphere.

Early science results from NASA's Juno mission portray the largest planet
in our solar system as a turbulent world, with an intriguingly complex
interior structure, energetic polar aurora, and huge polar cyclones.

JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton,
of Southwest Research Institute. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers
Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena.
More information on the Juno mission is available at:

https://www.nasa.gov/juno

http://missionjuno.org

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

https://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno

https://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

News Media Contact
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011 / 818-354-6278
ag...@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-188