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NASA’s Juno to Keep Spinning Around Jupiter Until 2021

Jupiter’s human-built companion Juno is to stick around some more after NASA pulled a rabbit out of its hat and managed to extend funding for the mission into the next decade.
Juno to keep studying Jupiter a while longer 1 photo
Photo: NASA
Built by Lockheed Martin and launched in 2011, the spacecraft arrived at its destination in 2016. Juno is tasked with making Jupiter easier to understand for the bipedal creatures on the third planet from the Sun. Using its instruments, Juno analyzes the planet’s composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere.

Initially, the probe was scheduled to be de-orbited following the completion of the scientific research. Due to a malfunction, the probe was unable to enter the targeted 14-day elliptical orbit and was instead placed on a 53-day orbit.

Because of the extended time spent circling the planet, its work there is not complete. Because a group of experts found the results achieved so far satisfactory and seeing how close the mission is to achieving its goals, NASA was able to to extend the life of the machine by 2021.

“With these funds, not only can the Juno team continue to answer long-standing questions about Jupiter that first fueled this exciting mission, but they’ll also investigate new scientific puzzles motivated by their discoveries thus far,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

“With every additional orbit, both scientists and citizen scientists will help unveil new surprises about this distant world."

The next job for Juno is another flyby, the thirteenth since arriving, over the planet's cloud tops. This would happen in a little over a month from now, on July 16.

Some of the most interesting findings of the mission are that the planet is riddled with storms the size of Earth and that atmospheric features are unlike anything else encountered in our solar system. A short overview of these findings is included in the video attached below.

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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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