NASA’s Juno spacecraft set for historic encounter with Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io; check date
Prepare for a celestial spectacle as NASA's Juno spacecraft gears up for an unprecedented rendezvous with Jupiter's fiery moon, Io, on Saturday, December 30. This close encounter, at a mere 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) from Io's tumultuous surface, marks the closest any spacecraft has ventured to the moon in over two decades, promising a deluge of groundbreaking data.
Leading the scientific charge is Juno's principal investigator, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, who anticipates a wealth of insights into Io's volcanic dynamics. "By combining data from this flyby with our previous observations, the Juno science team is studying how Io's volcanoes vary," Bolton explains. The team aims to unravel the mysteries of Io's eruptions- how often they occur, their intensity, the fluidity of lava flows, and their connection to Jupiter's magnetosphere's charged particles.
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This daring flyby is just the first act, with a second ultra-close encounter scheduled for February 3, 2024, where Juno will once again approach within 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of Io's surface. The spacecraft has been diligently monitoring Io's volcanic activity from varying distances, providing unprecedented views of the moon's poles and executing close flybys of other Jupiterian moons, Ganymede and Europa.
"With our pair of close flybys in December and February, Juno will investigate the source of Io's massive volcanic activity, whether a magma ocean exists underneath its crust, and the importance of tidal forces from Jupiter, which are relentlessly squeezing this tortured moon," Bolton affirms.
Entering its third year of an extended mission, Juno is on a quest to uncover the secrets of
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