Facts about Juno
- 16
Over 53 days, Juno completes each elliptical orbit around Jupiter, passing within 4,000 kilometers of the cloud tops during perijove events that occur roughly every 14 days.
- 15
Juno's instruments detected that Jupiter's core contains 12 to 20 Earth masses of material, fundamentally challenging previous models of how gas giants form and evolve.
- 14
The radiation environment around Juno is so intense that its electronics required shielding within a 400-pound vault made of tantalum and lead to prevent damage from Jupiter's magnetosphere.
- 13
Juno's Gravity Science investigation measured Jupiter's core mass at approximately 12 to 20 Earth masses, suggesting the planet formed through a fundamentally different process than previously understood.
- 12
Jupiter's Great Red Spot, observed continuously for over 350 years, has shrunk from approximately 40,000 kilometers wide in the 1800s to roughly 16,000 kilometers today according to Juno measurements.
- 11
Juno's infrared instrument JIRAM detected ammonia ice clouds on Jupiter for the first time, revealing previously unknown details about the planet's vertical atmospheric structure and composition.
- 10
Beneath Jupiter's visible cloud layers, Juno's microwave radiometer has mapped ammonia concentrations down to depths of 350 kilometers, revealing unexpected variations in the planet's atmospheric composition.
- 09
Juno's Gravity Science investigation detected water in Jupiter's atmosphere at concentrations three times higher than the sun's, revealing the planet contains significantly more water than previously theorized.
- 08
Juno's Waves instrument detected radio signals from Jupiter's auroras that reach frequencies of 40 megahertz, providing evidence of energetic particle acceleration processes occurring in the planet's upper atmosphere.
- 07
Juno's magnetometer has revealed that Jupiter's magnetic field is approximately 16 times stronger than Earth's, with an unusual offset of 7,000 kilometers from the planet's center.
- 06
Juno's perijove passages bring the spacecraft within 4,000 kilometers of Jupiter's cloud tops every 53 days, allowing detailed study of the planet's atmospheric dynamics and storm systems.
- 05
Solar panels power Juno rather than radioactive plutonium, making it the first outer planet probe to rely entirely on sunlight despite receiving only 3 percent of the solar energy available at Earth.
- 04
Juno's nine-megapixel JunoCam instrument has captured over 500 images of Jupiter since 2016, with processed images made publicly available for citizen scientists to enhance and analyze.
- 03
At 88,846 kilometers from Jupiter's center, Juno orbits closer to the gas giant than any previous spacecraft, enabling unprecedented measurements of its interior structure and gravitational field.
- 02
In 2016, Juno's instruments detected auroras at Jupiter's poles that are fifty times more powerful than Earth's northern lights, driven by particles from the solar wind and Jupiter's magnetosphere.
- 01
Launched in August 2011, NASA's Juno spacecraft completed its primary mission to study Jupiter's composition and magnetic field in July 2021 after five years of orbital data collection.