How Juno Explores Jupiter and Its Moons
New data from the agency’s Jupiter orbiter shed light on the fierce winds and cyclones of the gas giant’s northern reaches, as well as volcanic activity on its fiery moon. NASA’s Juno mission has obtained new data by peering beneath Jupiter’s cloudy atmosphere and onto the surface of its fiery moon Io. The data not only helped develop a new model to better understand the fast-moving jet stream that sweeps across Jupiter’s cyclone-strewn north pole, but also revealed for the first time the temperature profile beneath Io’s surface, providing insight into the moon’s interior and volcanic activity.
Jupiter’s Moon Io. Timeline of Exploration
Io, Jupiter’s fifth moon, is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Io’s surface is dotted with hundreds of volcanoes, some of which spew sulfur plumes hundreds of kilometers into the air.
Jupiter Mission: Present and Distant Past
Since the first flyby of Jupiter in December 1973, when NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft flew past the gas giant, Jupiter has been the subject of numerous flybys and close encounters by pioneering Earth probes. Pioneer 11 made its closest approach a year after Pioneer 10 in December 1974, and Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter in 1979.
A quick overview of all of Jupiter’s moons
Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, boasts 95 moons, making it the second most populated planet by moon count (Saturn has the most). A huge gas giant, Jupiter is orbited by numerous moons; the four largest of these are known as the Galilean moons, discovered by Galileo Galilei using a telescope in 1610. The four moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – are arranged in order of their distance from Jupiter. These moons proved that not all celestial bodies orbit the Earth, an important discovery because astronomers had previously believed that the Earth was the center of the universe.
Europa, a moon of Jupiter, generates enough oxygen to breathe for a million people during the day
NASA’s Juno mission measures the amount of oxygen on Europa. Jupiter’s ice-covered moon generates 1,000 tons of oxygen every 24 hours—enough to keep a million people breathing for a day. But the rate of oxygen production on Jupiter’s moon Europa is significantly slower than most previous studies. The results, published March 4 in the journal Nature Astronomy, were obtained by measuring hydrogen evolution from the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon using data collected by the Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instrument.