SUCCESSFUL FINAL PHASE OF JUPITER MISSION

“Welcome to Jupiter.”

Those were the words that ushered in a mixture of relief and celebration for NASA scientists in July as they received confirmation that the Juno probe had successfully entered the orbit of the biggest planet in our solar system.

After a tense 35-minute decent, the probe entered Jupiter’s orbit five years after launching in 2011.

The data-gathering spacecraft will spend the next 14 months orbiting the planet and sucking up crucial information, giving scientists insights into questions about Jupiter’s atmosphere and core.

Jupiter’s composition is more of a mystery than anything else. Scientists currently believe the gaseous planet has a dense central core that may be surrounded by a layer of metallic hydrogen, with another layer of molecular hydrogen on top.

Juno will get so close to Jupiter’s inhospitable environment that it will be able to study its atmosphere giving unprecedented insight into its origins as well as the origins of other planets in our solar system, including Earth.

By better understanding Jupiter’s chemistry we will understand “what our solar system was like billions of years ago,” NASA’s Michelle Thaller said.

The huge gas planet was likely the first planet formed and had a major impact on the formation of other planets.