Juno probe arrives in Jupiter orbit

[Martin-O2]

Hey guys, 

An exciting week for space exploration as the Juno probe has successfully entered Jupiter's orbit following a 5 year journey! The purpose of the probe is to study the in interior structure of the planet which will provide clues to it's formation and hopefully determine if there is a solid core or not. 

Jupiter is one of my favourite planets and it's an absolute beast containing over twice the mass of all the other planets combined. Composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. The planet also features a magnetic field that's 14 times stronger then Earths which if visible would be many times the size of the full moon. It's likely generated by a layer of "metallic hydrogen", which is hydrogen compressed under extreme pressure until it forms a liquid metal like substance similar to mercury. 

It's also home to 67 moons, the majority of which are below 10 kilometres in diameter. The main 4 moons of note are called the Galilean moons (discovered by Galileo) called Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto which are fascinating places in their own right with possible sub surface ocean on Europa, Io being the most geologically active object in the Solar System and Ganymede holding the title of the largest moon in the Solar system! 

The planet also has some of the most extreme weather and it's atmosphere is constantly churning with storms. The most famous of which is the great red spot which as been going for at least 300 years. 

I'm really interested by what we could learn about our largest neighbour from this mission. What do you guys think? Is this a massive waste of money or a worthy endeavour to find out more about how the Solar system formed?

Further reading on the Juno mission

[gmarkj]

Brilliant.
Wonder if everyone else can start providing a service that runs to NASA time - can you imagine if all the trains ran to time? People would still complain though; "I missed my train because it was on time..."

[jonsie]

We can learn a lot from Germany where buses and trains are pretty much always on time.

[Daddydoink]

I hate to say this - no, they're not. The rural services are so hard to keep right that the buses run "on demand" and the trains run infrequently to prevent hold up. I think many people forget how frequent services can be in the UK 🙂

Oops, I've just shown that I work in the transport industry, haven't I?

[jonsie]

Maybe things have changed but I have spent a lot of time in Berlin where my son lives. There would have to be major incidents for buses and trains to be late. Don't visit rural areas much but you can set your watch by the U-Bahn and S-Bahn services.

[Cleoriff]

My sister had a house in the Dordogne region. I travelled there by train after flying into Paris. Caught the Paris to Marseilles train.  A 4 hr journey. to Perigueux... made 2 stops and it was never late. It was a novelty for me to buy a train ticket with my seat and carriage number on. The station was marked with the corresponding carriage numbers....so that was where you waited to board. A real eye opener after using the UK rail system......

Edited to add ...this was in the 90's