Of course, data is data so there is some science planned using it.
If the variation of color are indicative of a similar variation in density, why is there so much turbulence in Jupiter, why are the upper layers not more consistent? Tidal motion? Anyone know?
It is well intentioned, it makes the images much more informative, and they are just really cool, which helps with public support. But it is also a bit misleading and confuses people.
[1]: https://www.astronomy.com/science/ask-astro-could-jupiter-ev...
This[2] paper studies the ovals but has some details on the atmosphere, including the colors:
The reddish color is usually attributed to red “chromophores”, which are products of a series of complex chemical reactions, such as the UV photolization of ammonia with acetylene. These chromophores can act as coating material for the ammonia particles.
The cloud structure of the Jupiter's atmosphere, and in particular the nature of vortex features, as the [Great Red Spot] and the white ovals, is still puzzling.
This[3] paper tries to reproduce the reactions in the lab and compare them with the observed colors. It goes into some more details around the potential color formation.
I also want to just include this picture[4] because I just love the tiny fluffy clouds, which shadows provides amazing depth feeling.
[1]: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia25018-nasas-juno-mission-...
[2]: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201... Characterization of the white ovals on Jupiter's southern hemisphere using the first data by the Juno/JIRAM instrument
[3]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2016.03.008 Chromophores from photolyzed ammonia reacting with acetylene: Application to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (use the hub of science for full paper)
Not sure a small star (e.g red-dwarf size) in Jupiter’s orbit would make much difference to Earth, other than it being brighter at night when it’s in the sky.
There are so preciously few places like Earth. How I wish more of us cared about it.
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/jupiter-in-true-and-false-...
https://www.cnet.com/science/space/why-nasas-image-of-jupite...
In college my son worked on the FFT engine that processed the radar data. He has code circling Jupiter!
Jupiters sphere of influence is full of radiation, meaning the sat needs a lot of shielding which makes it very heavy. Additionally, you need a lot of thrust to not only get to Jupiter, but to be able to get into a geosync orbit around a planet other than earth, so youre gonna need a lot of fuel. And finally, time... Europa Clipper just left earth, it will be 8 years before it arrives at jupiter. The windows for launch are long but very spread out, so mission timing would be important too.
And, funfacts time.. Clipper is going to europa but will be spending much of its time in orbit around jupiter, passing closely to europa every orbit. This was done to limit the amount of radiation the sat will get during its mission, and that orbit is uuuge, in order to avoid as much of the radiation as possible.
The area of Jupiter and its moons is probably one of the most hostile space environments in our system, catching asteroids, radiation, huge planet full of gasses that would corrode you and your ship if you dipped in, and a huge gravity well that makes it difficult to leave again once youre there. Not many other planets in our system are as dangerous as jupiter and friends.
I guess we have grown used to this by now, but from the Moon landing pictures, to the Mars rovers and the various asteroid and planetary missions the objects of the Solar system are now vivid, complex and above all, "real" places.
On an exponential scale, Jupiter is closer to being a star than it is to being Earth. So... maybe you could say that Jupiter is almost a star. With such loose definitions talking about astronomical scales, there's a lot of room for interpretation and exaggeration.
I think the point is--in the spirit of appreciating Jupiter--Jupiter resembles the largest possible planets.
And life on earth is just an accident, and that intelligence and consciousness exists here for a very brief time on the universe's path to heath death doesn't matter at all. Except of us poor conscious beings who find joy in being alive and actually have the capacity to marvel, because it is marvellous that we can, and we should.
And I care that it is us who inhabits the earth, and not slugs.
The SLS option would have entailed a direct trajectory to Jupiter taking less than three years. ... The move to Falcon Heavy saved an estimated US$2 billion in launch costs alone. NASA was not sure an SLS would be available for the mission since the Artemis program would use SLS rockets extensively, and the SLS's use of solid rocket boosters (SRBs) generates more vibrations in the payload than a launcher that does not use SRBs.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, New Horizons was only 478 kg [1] and still holds the record for the fastest thing ever launched from Earth. It also did a gravity assist flyby around Jupiter and it still took 9 years to get to Pluto.
That’s why NASA is poor and pentagon is rich.
To me as a taxpayer, if there are no cool pictures, it doesn’t exist.
If they were politically shrewd, camera would be the biggest instrument.
And the next probe that will dive into the sun would carry the bullet that killed Kennedy or a shot off piece from Trump’s ear.
> And I care that it is us who inhabits the earth, and not slugs.
That's not mutually exclusive with the comment you were replying to.
I agree with both of your comments except for your opinion that the first comment is "edgy cynism" and "juvenile".
Congratulations, by the way. I’m being (trying to be) funny but I genuinely think that is cool and a reason to be proud.
Potential cost of increased storage onboard the spacecraft if it is significant data volume. Cost of downlinking the data to the ground, time on the DSN is expensive. I think the cost data sheets for DSN usage are online and it depends on data rate, what dish you are using, etc. but costs for usage are on the order of thousands per hour and data rates from Jupiter are pretty slow.
The cost of the camera itself is likely on the order of a couple hundred thousand. I've seen similar costs for small radiation hardened cameras and star trackers. The difference in parts cost for some things can be absolutely insane. Passive electrical components certainly cost more, but for active circuits it can be insane. A radiation hardened equivalent of a $20 FPGA can be something like $20,000.
All told, cost of integration and use over the mission is likely at least a few million. But on a $1.1 billion mission it still doesn't seem like a lot.
He uses me as a reference.
As soon as they start being like “can he use the latest android libraries and techniques” or some crap. I just shoot back: “The man has code on another planet, he’s more than capable of picking up anything”
They shut up so fast lol
Has anyone actually tried putting up non-rad hardened equipment to measure how they perform? The Mars helicopter wasn't RAD hardened and used off the shelf parts & succeeded and the Mars atmosphere is not thick enough to meaningfully block the amount of cosmic rays hitting the surface.
I think NASA doesn't do a good job sometimes tolerating risk and then everything is treated as needing safety-levels of risk mitigation without considering that a 1/100th cost reduction will not generate as much in parts failures.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39175423#39182421
Lots of the new space, and smaller satellite companies use a lot of commercial parts. A lot of the flight data has shown even better results than the radiation testing (possibly due to added stress of testing at higher rates vs low rates over longer mission duration).
Generally speaking most of this is in LEO with a pretty low radiation environment. Whereas the area around Jupiter is one of the worst radiation environments in the solar system due to the radiation belts (like the Van Allen belts on steroids). This page on the Juno Radiation Vault says the spacecraft is exposed to an anticipated 20 Mrads of radiation. Whereas spacecraft in LEO are exposed to 0.1-10 krads per year depending on the orbit.
Also a fun fact, this is with Juno trying to limit exposure to the radiation belts as much as possible. [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Radiation_Vault
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)#/media/File:...
I do absolutely understand this impression of NASA. But I also think it gets inflated because the highest profile NASA missions that you hear about in the news are the most expensive and least risk tolerant missions. But there is pretty large spectrum in terms of cost caps and risk tolerance to NASA mission classes. I think generally in order of descending cost/risk tolernace it is: Human Spaceflight, Flagship (i.e. JWST, Mars Rovers), New Frontiers (Juno falls here), Discovery, Explorer, Mid-Explorer (MidEx), Small Explorer (SmEx), Venture.
For an example in the Venture class you can look at something like CYGNSS. Constellation of 8 spacecraft to better understand dynamics of hurricanes by looking at ocean wind speeds. This is done by mapping doppler delay of reflected GPS signals off of waves in the ocean. Important science, super cool technology with mostly automotive grade parts. ~$150 million for the whole mission that lasted about 7 years.
Anybody with code circling Jupiter definitely has bragging rights and should be proud. If it were a just world, he/she wouldn't have to pay for a drink in a bar, ever.
To expand on this a bit, it's the fastest launch. The unqualified speed record goes to the Parker Solar Probe in 2018, and was previous held by Helios B way back in 1976.
The distinction here is that New Horizons has spent it's life traveling away from the Sun, and it costs energy and thus speed to do so. Meanwhile, solar probes gain speed during their fall towards the Sun.
> The image is reprojected according to a preliminary geometrical camera model, cleaned from some of the camera artifacts, approximately illumination adjusted with a 3rd degree polynomial BRDF over the cosines of the incidence and emission angle
Check out the "Source Image(s)" link attached to each pic, it should give you a much better idea what the camera is actually seeing. Scroll to the bottom of the source image and you can see the different color channels as well as how it's interleaved for transmission. Here's the example I pulled that description from and it's source:
https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing?id=17025
https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing?id=JNCE_...
#/media/File:Juno_trajectory_through_radiation_belts.png){kind=link}