Spacecraft buzzes Jupiter’s mega moon, 1st close-up in years

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Juno spacecraft has provided the first close-ups of Jupiter’s largest moon in two decades.

Juno zoomed past icy Ganymede on Monday, passing within 645 miles. The last time a spacecraft came that close was in 2000 when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft swept past our solar system’s biggest moon.

NASA released Juno’s first two pictures Tuesday, highlighting Ganymede’s craters and long, narrow features possibly related to tectonic faults. One shows the moon’s far side, opposite the sun.

“This is the closest any spacecraft has come to this mammoth moon in a generation,” said Juno’s lead scientist, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “We are going to take our time before we draw any scientific conclusions, but until then we can simply marvel at this celestial wonder — the only moon in our solar system bigger than the planet Mercury.”

Ganymede is one of 79 known moons around Jupiter, a gas giant. Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered Ganymede in 1610, along with Jupiter’s three next-biggest moons.

Launched a decade ago, Juno has been orbiting Jupiter for five years.

NASA has also announced two Venus missions for its Discovery Program. Each project will receive about $500 million from NASA for development. The missions are expected to launch by 2028 to 2030.

The last time the United States visited Venus was in 1989, when it sent the spacecraft Magellan to map the topography of the “hellish” planet. Although Venus is roughly the size of Earth, the planet is fundamentally different, encased in a dense, toxic atmosphere of carbon dioxide.

One mission, VERITAS, will send an orbiter to Venus to create high-resolution imaging of the planet’s surface and gather data on the composition of its rocky topography.

The other mission, DAVINCI+, will drop an atmospheric probe through Venus’ harsh atmosphere to measure its chemical composition.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3v6FFM7