Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
This view of Jupiter was captured by the JunoCam instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during the mission’s 62nd close flyby of the giant planet on June 13. Citizen scientist Jackie Branc made the image using raw JunoCam data.Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing: Jackie Branc (CC BY) Using data from the Advanced Stellar Compass (ASC) star tracker cameras aboard NASA’s Juno, this graphic shows the mission’s model for radiation intensity at different points in the spacecraft’s orbit around Jupiter.NASA/JPL-Caltech/DTU Using cameras designed for navigation, scientists count ‘fireflies’ to determine the amount of radiation the spacecraft receives during each orbit of Jupiter.
Scientists with NASA’s Juno mission have developed the first complete 3D radiation map of the Jupiter system. Along with characterizing the intensity of the high-energy particles near the orbit of the icy moon Europa, the map shows how the radiation environment is sculpted by the smaller moons orbiting near Jupiter’s rings.
The work relies on data collected by Juno’s Advanced Stellar Compass (ASC), which was designed and built by the Technical University of Denmark, and the spacecraft’s Stellar Reference Unit (SRU), which was built by Leonardo SpA in Florence, Italy. The two datasets complement each other, helping Juno scientists characterize the radiation environment at different energies.
Both the ASC and SRU are low-light cameras designed to assist with deep-space navigation. These types of instruments are on almost all spacecraft. But to get them to operate as radiation detectors, Juno’s science team had to look at the cameras in a whole new light.
“On Juno we try to innovate new ways to use our sensors to learn about nature, and we have used many of our science instruments in ways they were not designed for,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “This is the first detailed radiation map of the region at these higher energies, which is a major step in understanding how Jupiter’s radiation environment works. This will help planning observations for the next generation of missions to the Jovian system.”
Counting Fireflies
Consisting of four star cameras on the spacecraft’s magnetometer boom, Juno’s ASC takes images of stars to determine the spacecraft’s orientation in space, which is vital to the success of the mission’s magnetic field experiment. But the instrument has also proved to be a valuable detector of high-energy particle fluxes in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. The cameras record “hard radiation,” or ionizing radiation that impacts a spacecraft with sufficient energy to pass through the ASC’s shielding.
“Every quarter-second, the ASC takes an image of the stars,” said Juno scientist John Leif Jørgensen of the Technical University of Denmark. “Very energetic electrons that penetrate its shielding leave a telltale signature in our images that looks like the trail of a firefly. The instrument is programmed to count the number of these fireflies, giving us an accurate calculation of the amount of radiation.”
Jupiter’s moon Europa was captured by the JunoCam instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during the mission’s close flyby on Sept. 29, 2022.Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing: Björn Jónsson (CC BY 3.0) Because of Juno’s ever-changing orbit, the spacecraft has traversed practically all regions of space near Jupiter.
ASC data suggests that there is more very high-energy radiation relative to lower-energy radiation near Europa’s orbit than previously thought. The data also confirms that there are more high-energy electrons on the side of Europa facing its orbital direction of motion than on the moon’s trailing side. This is because most of the electrons in Jupiter’s magnetosphere overtake Europa from behind due to the planet’s rotation, whereas the very high-energy electrons drift backward, almost like fish swimming upstream, and slam into Europa’s front side.
Jovian radiation data is not the ASC’s first scientific contribution to the mission. Even before arriving at Jupiter, ASC data was used to determine a measurement of interstellar dust impacting Juno. The imager also discovered a previously uncharted comet using the same dust-detection technique, distinguishing small bits of the spacecraft ejected by microscopic dust impacting Juno at a high velocity.
Dust Rings
Like Juno’s ASC, the SRU has been used as a radiation detector and a low-light imager. Data from both instruments indicates that, like Europa, the small “shepherd moons” that orbit within or close to the edge of Jupiter’s rings (and help to hold the shape of the rings) also appear to interact with the planet’s radiation environment. When the spacecraft flies on magnetic field lines connected to ring moons or dense dust, the radiation count on both the ASC and SRU drops precipitously. The SRU is also collecting rare low-light images of the rings from Juno’s unique vantage point.
“There is still a lot of mystery about how Jupiter’s rings were formed, and very few images have been collected by prior spacecraft,” said Heidi Becker, lead co-investigator for the SRU and a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. “Sometimes we’re lucky and one of the small shepherd moons can be captured in the shot. These images allow us to learn more precisely where the ring moons are currently located and see the distribution of dust relative to their distance from Jupiter.”
More About the Mission
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Technical University of Denmark designed and built the Advanced Stellar Compass. The Stellar Reference Unit was built by Leonardo SpA in Florence, Italy. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.
More information about Juno is available at:
https://www.nasa.gov/juno
News Media Contacts
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-385-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
Simon Koefoed Toft
Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
+45 9137 0088
sito@dtu.dk
Deb Schmid
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
210-522-2254
dschmid@swri.org
2024-111
Share
Details
Last Updated Aug 20, 2024 Related Terms
Juno Europa Io Jet Propulsion Laboratory Jupiter Jupiter Moons The Solar System Explore More
4 min read Super Blue Moons: Your Questions Answered
The Moon of August 30-31, 2023, is a full moon, a supermoon, and a blue…
Article 21 hours ago 4 min read NASA Citizen Scientists Spot Object Moving 1 Million Miles Per Hour
Most familiar stars peacefully orbit the center of the Milky Way. But citizen scientists working…
Article 5 days ago 4 min read The Summer Triangle’s Hidden Treasures
With the Summer Triangle high in the sky, it’s a great time to lie back,…
Article 5 days ago View the full article
-
By NASA
NASA’s Pegasus barge delivers the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s core stage for the 2022 Artemis I mission to the turn basin at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in April 2021. Credits: NASA/Michael Downs Media are invited in late July to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to see progress on the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) Moon rocket as preparations continue for the Artemis II test flight around the Moon.
Participants joining the multi-day events will see the arrival and unloading of the 212-foot-tall SLS core stage at the center’s turn basin before it is transported to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building. The stage will arrive on NASA’s Pegasus barge from the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where it was manufactured and assembled.
Media also will see the twin pair of solid rocket boosters inside the Rotation, Processing, and Surge Facility at the spaceport, where NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program is processing the motor segments in preparation for rocket assembly. NASA and industry subject matter experts will be available to answer questions. At launch, the SLS rocket’s two solid rocket boosters and four RS-25 engines, located at the base of its core stage, will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust to send the first crewed mission of the Artemis campaign around the Moon.
Media interested in participating must apply for credentials at:
https://media.ksc.nasa.gov
To receive credentials, international media must apply by Friday, June 28, and U.S. citizens must apply by Thursday, July 5.
Credentialed media will receive a confirmation email upon approval, along with additional information about the specific date for the activities when they are finalized. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, please email ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other questions, please contact Kennedy’s newsroom at: 321-867-2468.
Para obtener información sobre cobertura en español en el Centro Espacial Kennedy o si desea solicitar entrevistas en español, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo o Messod Bendayan a: antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov o messod.c.bendayan@nasa.gov.
The approximately 10-day Artemis II flight will test NASA’s SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft, and ground systems for the first time with astronauts and will pave the way for lunar surface missions, including landing the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon.
Learn more about Artemis at:
www.nasa.gov/artemis/
-end-
Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
281-358-1100
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov
Tiffany Fairley/Antonia Jaramillo
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-867-2468
tiffany.l.fairley@nasa.gov/antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Jun 14, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Artemis 2 Artemis Humans in Space Kennedy Space Center Space Launch System (SLS) View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
ESA has teamed up with Samsung to launch the first watch face for our Solar System.
View the full article
-
By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is an example of a concentrated solar power plant, which works by having hundreds of reflective panels heating up a central tower. The problem of keeping sunlight directed at the receiver throughout the day brought Jim Clair to request NASA’s help in validating the suspended design now used in Skysun solar power systems.Credit: Cliff Ho/U.S. Department of Energy In the 80 years since the shocking collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington, engineers have designed suspended structures to minimize their universal weakness: resonance. If not designed to deal with oscillations caused by forces like wind, the frequency of these forces would cause tensions to build and inevitably break the structure.
When Jim Clair examined how to focus mirrors at a concentrated solar energy power plant, he thought about suspending the mirrors on cables but remembered the images of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge shaking itself apart. To determine how well these suspended solar panels would hold up to potentially destructive oscillations, Clair, and his company Skysun LLC in Cleveland, Ohio, sought the help of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in 2016 to verify his design was safe from dangerous resonance.
The Skysun Solar Pollinator is designed to be suspended above plants that thrive in partial shade, and it can generate up to two kilowatts of power. The suspended design was validated by Glenn Research Center dynamicists under the Adopt-A-City program. Credit: Skysun LLC Trevor Jones, a dynamicist at Glenn, went to nearby Lorain County Community College to work with a prototype of the system. Jones induced vibrations in the cables with hammers and took measurements of the resulting oscillations. Based on this data, Jones designed a program that could accurately model the design’s tensile strength against wind-induced oscillations at any scale. With the dimensions plugged in, the program did the math and proved that Clair’s idea would work without shaking apart.
Today, Skysun builds various suspended solar energy generation systems, ranging from the hammock-like Skysun Solar Pollinator to full-sized solar pergolas that provide both electricity and shade.
Read More Share
Details
Last Updated Mar 12, 2024 Related Terms
Spinoffs Glenn Research Center Technology Technology Transfer Technology Transfer & Spinoffs Explore More
5 min read NASA’s Network of Small Moon-Bound Rovers Is Ready to Roll
Article 5 days ago 2 min read Back on Earth: NASA’s Orion Capsule Put to the Test Before Crewed Mission
Article 6 days ago 2 min read Tech Today: Semiconductor Research Leads to Revolution in Dental Care
Article 1 week ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Technology Transfer and Spinoffs News
View the full article
-
By NASA
“I have been interested in aviation for as long as I can remember. There are pictures of me at two years old and younger with my face pinned against the window, watching airplanes taxi around the airport. I had never not known that I wanted to be a pilot. The amazing engineering that goes into [airplanes], but certainly the freedom of flight is just spectacular. Being able to see the world from a different perspective is incredible, and getting to fly in space was the culmination of that, seeing the world from an entirely new vantage point.
“One thing that surprised me was how emotional the launch piece is, especially for a first-time flier. One, it’s the culmination of these lifehood dreams where it’s taken so long to get here, and you’re finally getting to launch to space, which so few people have the privilege to do. Then, for a long-duration mission, you’re leaving your family and kids behind, and there’s that emotion as well. So, all those things piled up, it just makes for an incredibly special experience, and it’s amazing because eight and a half minutes later, after that engine lights, you’re in space, and you look back on it.”
— Bob Hines, Astronaut, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
Image Credit: NASA / Kjell Lindgren
Interviewer: NASA / Tahira Allen
Check out some of our other Faces of NASA.
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.