From aboard the Juno spacecraft, a Southwest Research Institute-led instrument observing auroras serendipitously spotted a bright flash above Jupiter’s clouds last spring. The Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) team studied the data and determined that they had captured a bolide, an extremely bright meteoroid explosion in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-scientists-image-bright-meteoroid-explosion.html…
Tag: juno spacecraft
Juno spacecraft spots meteor fireball lighting up Jupiter’s skies
NASA’s Juno probe, currently circling Jupiter, has spotted what appears to be the fiery blast of a meteoroid plunging into the planet Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2268199-juno-spacecraft-spots-meteor-fireball-lighting-up-jupiters-skies/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
NASA’s Juno mission expands into the future
NASA has authorized a mission extension for its Juno spacecraft exploring Jupiter. The agency’s most distant planetary orbiter will now continue its investigation of the solar system’s largest planet through September 2025, or until the spacecraft’s end of life. This expansion tasks Juno with becoming an explorer of the full Jovian system—Jupiter and its rings and moons—with multiple rendezvous planned for…
Juno spacecraft updates quarter-century Jupiter mystery
Twenty-five years ago, NASA sent history’s first probe into the atmosphere of the solar system’s largest planet. But the information returned by the Galileo probe during its descent into Jupiter caused head-scratching: The atmosphere it was plunging into was much denser and hotter than scientists expected. New data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft suggests that these “hot spots” are much wider and…
How Jupiter’s moon Io gets its hellish atmosphere
Hot, active volcanoes produce almost half of Jupiter’s moon Io’s sulfur atmosphere, according to new observations using the ALMA telescope. The rest comes from cold sulfur deposits that freeze on the surface, then sublimate in sunlight. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/io-sulfur-volcanoes-hot-so2-cold-so2…
Astronomers release a black hole family portrait
“Black hole family portrait” is a fancy way of saying “new catalog.” But it’s a very important and exciting catalog, released October 28, 2020 by gravitational wave astronomers, containing 39 new signals from black hole or neutron star collisions. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/ligo-virgo-new-catalog-gwtc-2-black-hole-family-portrait…
Electric! Astronomers find sprites in Jupiter’s atmosphere
Scientists with NASA’s Juno mission say they have detected sprites or elves – electrical phenomena above thunderstorms on Earth – in the clouds of Jupiter for the first time. Unlike the red-colored earthly ones however, the Jovian ones are blue. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/sprites-or-elves-in-jupiters-atmosphere-lightning-juno…
Super-Earth exoplanets often have giant ‘Jupiter’ bodyguards
Planetary systems with both super-Earths and Jupiter-type planets may be common, according to a new study. As in our own solar system, the giant planets would act as “bodyguards” protecting the smaller planets from asteroid impacts. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/super-earth-exoplanet-giant-jupiter-bodyguard…
Strange lightning on Jupiter may be caused by ammonia snowballs
The Juno spacecraft has spotted lightning on Jupiter that’s unlike anything we’ve seen before, and it may be caused by strange, slushy balls of ammonia and ice Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2250851-strange-lightning-on-jupiter-may-be-caused-by-ammonia-snowballs/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Juno’s new images reveal Ganymede’s north pole
These are the first spacecraft images yet acquired of the north pole of Ganymede, largest moon of the giant planet Jupiter. NASA’s Juno spacecraft – now orbiting Jupiter – obtained them. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/ganymede-north-pole-infrared-images-juno-spacecraft-jupiter…