March 29, 2024

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft “Hears” Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede – Listen to the Dramatic Flyby of the Icy Orb

Junos Waves instrument, which tunes in to magnetic and electric radio waves produced in Jupiters magnetosphere, gathered the data on those emissions. Radio emissions collected during Junos June 7, 2021, flyby of Jupiters moon Ganymede are presented here, both aesthetically and in noise. The Juno team has likewise launched its most current image of Jupiters faint dust ring, taken from inside the ring looking out by the spacecrafts Stellar Reference Unit navigation video camera. Jupiters magnetic field surrounds the planet. Activity on one end of the magnetosphere can therefore be felt someplace else, permitting Juno to keep track of procedures occurring in this entire, giant region of space around Jupiter.

This JunoCam image shows two of Jupiters large turning storms, recorded on Junos 38th perijove pass, on November 29, 2021. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ MSSS Image processing: Kevin M. Gill CC BY
An audio track collected during Jupiter objectives Ganymede flyby offers a dramatic ride-along. It is one of the highlights objective researchers shared in a briefing at American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
Sounds from a Ganymede flyby, electromagnetic fields, and amazing contrasts between Jupiter and Earths atmospheres and oceans were discussed during an instruction today on NASAs Juno objective to Jupiter at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans.
Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio has actually debuted a 50-second audio track produced from information collected during the objectives close flyby of the Jovian moon Ganymede on June 7, 2021. Junos Waves instrument, which tunes in to magnetic and electrical radio waves produced in Jupiters magnetosphere, collected the data on those emissions. Their frequency was then shifted into the audio range to make the audio track.

” This soundtrack is just wild enough to make you feel as if you were riding along as Juno cruises previous Ganymede for the very first time in more than twenty years,” stated Bolton. “If you listen closely, you can hear the abrupt modification to greater frequencies around the midpoint of the recording, which represents entry into a various area in Ganymedes magnetosphere.”
Radio emissions gathered during Junos June 7, 2021, flyby of Jupiters moon Ganymede are presented here, both visually and in sound. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ Univ of IowaDetailed analysis and modeling of the Waves data are ongoing. “It is possible the modification in the frequency soon after closest technique is due to passing from the nightside to the dayside of Ganymede,” said William Kurth of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, lead co-investigator for the Waves investigation.
At the time of Junos closest approach to Ganymede– throughout the objectives 34th journey around Jupiter– the spacecraft was within 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) of the moons surface and taking a trip at a relative speed of 41,600 miles per hour (67,000 kph).
Magnetic Jupiter
Jack Connerney from NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is the lead private investigator with Junos magnetometer and is the missions deputy principal private investigator. His team has produced the most detailed map ever gotten of Jupiters electromagnetic field.
Assembled from information gathered from 32 orbits throughout Junos prime objective, the map provides new insights into the gas giants mysterious Great Blue Spot, a magnetic anomaly at the planets equator. Juno data suggests that a change in the gas giants electromagnetic field has occurred during the spacecrafts 5 years in orbit, which the Great Blue Spot is drifting eastward at a speed of about 2 inches (4 centimeters) per 2nd relative to the rest of Jupiters interior, lapping the planet in about 350 years.
This image of the Jovian moon Ganymede was acquired by the JunoCam imager aboard NASAs Juno spacecraft during its June 7, 2021, flyby of the icy moon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ MSSS.
On the other hand, the Great Red Spot– the long-lived atmospheric anticyclone simply south of Jupiters equator– is wandering westward at a relatively quick clip, circling the planet in about four-and-a-half years.
In addition, the brand-new map shows that Jupiters zonal winds (jet streams that run east to west and west to east, providing Jupiters its distinctive banded appearance) are pulling the Great Blue Spot apart. This means that the zonal winds measured on the surface area of the world reach deep into the planets interior.
The new electromagnetic field map also permits Juno scientists to make comparisons with Earths electromagnetic field. The information suggests to the team that dynamo action– the mechanism by which a celestial body produces a magnetic field– in Jupiters interior takes place in metal hydrogen, below a layer expressing “helium rain.”.
Information Juno collects during its prolonged mission may further unravel the secrets of the dynamo result not only at Jupiter however those of other planets, including Earth.
Earths Oceans, Jupiters Atmosphere.
Lia Siegelman, a physical oceanographer and postdoctoral fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, chose to study the dynamics of Jupiters environment after observing that the cyclones at Jupiters pole appear to share similarities with ocean vortices she studied during her time as a doctoral trainee.
” When I saw the richness of the turbulence around the Jovian cyclones, with all the filaments and smaller sized eddies, it reminded me of the turbulence you see in the ocean around eddies,” stated Siegelman. “These are particularly apparent in high-resolution satellite pictures of vortices in Earths oceans that are exposed by plankton blooms that act as tracers of the flow.”.
The simplified model of Jupiters pole reveals that geometric patterns of vortices, like those observed on Jupiter, spontaneously emerge, and survive permanently. This indicates that the standard geometrical configuration of the world enables these interesting structures to form.
Jupiters energy system is on a scale much bigger than Earths, understanding the characteristics of the Jovian atmosphere could help us comprehend the physical systems at play on our own world.
Arming Perseus.
The Juno group has also released its latest picture of Jupiters faint dust ring, drawn from inside the ring watching out by the spacecrafts Stellar Reference Unit navigation video camera. The brightest of the thin bands and neighboring dark regions scene in the image are linked to dust generated by 2 of Jupiters small moons, Metis and Adrastea. The image also catches the arm of the constellation Perseus.
” It is awesome that we can look at these familiar constellations from a spacecraft a half-billion miles away,” said Heidi Becker, lead co-investigator of Junos Stellar Reference Unit instrument at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “But whatever looks basically the same as when we value them from our yards here in the world. Its an amazing suggestion of how small we are and just how much there is delegated check out.”.
This artists making reveals Juno above Jupiters north pole, with the auroras radiant brightly. Jupiters magnetic field surrounds the world.

Juno Waves.
The Waves instrument determines radio and plasma waves in Jupiters magnetosphere, helping us comprehend the interactions in between the planets magnetic field, environment, and magnetosphere. Waves also pays particular attention to activity related to auroras.
Jupiters magnetosphere, an enormous bubble created by the worlds magnetic field, traps plasma, an electrically charged gas. Activity within this plasma, which fills the magnetosphere, sets off waves that just an instrument like Waves can discover.
Due to the fact that plasma conducts electrical energy, it behaves like a huge circuit, linking one region with another. Activity on one end of the magnetosphere can therefore be felt someplace else, enabling Juno to monitor procedures taking place in this entire, giant region of space around Jupiter. Radio and plasma waves move through the space around all of the giant, external planets, and previous missions have been equipped with similar instruments.
Junos Waves instrument includes 2 sensing units; one detects the electric part of radio and plasma waves, while the other is sensitive to simply the magnetic component of plasma waves. The very first sensing unit, called an electric dipole antenna, is a V-shaped antenna, four meters from tip to tip– similar to the rabbit-ear antennas that were as soon as common on TVs. The magnetic antenna– called a magnetic search coil– consists of a coil of great wire wrapped 10,000 times around a 6-inch-long (15-centimeter) core. The search coil measures magnetic fluctuations in the audio frequency variety.
More About the Mission.
JPL, a department of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal private investigator, Scott J. Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno belongs to NASAs New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the companys Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.