On 5 August 2011, NASA’s Juno spacecraft launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, aboard an Atlas V rocket, beginning a five-year spaceflight to Jupiter, the largest planet. Juno will conduct a detailed study of Jupiter, aiming to yield new insights into Jupiter’s origin and evolution, and a better understanding of our Solar System and planetary systems around other stars. Interestingly, it is named after the mythological Roman goddess Juno, the wife of Jupiter, the king of gods.
Jupiter is over 300 times more massive than Earth, and its diameter is 11 times that of Earth. It is located over 740 million km from the Sun. With 63 satellites, including four large moons, and a system of delicate faint rings, Jupiter is a miniature Solar System. Its composition is similar that of stars, and if it were 80 times more massive, it would evolve into a small star. Jupiter’s atmosphere is characterized by beautiful bands of colorful thick clouds, which totally obscure the planet.
"Today, with the launch of the Juno spacecraft, NASA began a journey to yet another new frontier," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The future of exploration includes cutting-edge science like this to help us better understand our Solar System and an ever-increasing array of challenging destinations."
Juno’s interplanetary voyage to Jupiter is 2,800 million km long. Juno will enter orbit around Jupiter, to study the planet’s structure, atmosphere and magnetic field, applying a set of eight science instruments.
"Jupiter is the Rosetta Stone of our Solar System," said Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator. "It is by far the oldest planet, contains more material than all the other planets, asteroids and comets combined, and carries deep inside it the story of not only the Solar System but of us. Juno is going there as our emissary -- to interpret what Jupiter has to say."
Juno, however, is not the first Jovian mission. Since 1973, several space probes visited Jupiter, most remarkably the Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003.
References
NASA
www.nasa.gov/
Wikipedia
For more information about Juno, please visit the following websites.
http://www.nasa.gov/juno
http://missionjuno.swri.edu