[HN Gopher] Juno skims the cloud tops of Jupiter
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       Juno skims the cloud tops of Jupiter
        
       Author : lelf
       Score  : 123 points
       Date   : 2022-06-04 17:15 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nasa.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nasa.gov)
        
       | arriu wrote:
       | It's really a shame they didn't put better imaging equipment on
       | Juno. The argument being that little science would be gained from
       | it. I'd argue secondary effects would have made it worth the
       | weight.
        
         | sephamorr wrote:
         | You have to be careful what you ask for - I certainly like
         | pretty pictures myself, but one of the reasons that Juno is so
         | successful as a scientific mission is because it was kept to
         | the barebones and managed scope so aggressively. With Juno ($1B
         | for an outer planets mission) we got Flagship mission-quality
         | science for a New Frontiers price. There's a good interview
         | with Mark Wolverton on Planetary Radio that discusses how this
         | happened.
        
       | 0daystock wrote:
        
         | bliteben wrote:
         | so that google can be the only crawler that is allowed
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | leephillips wrote:
         | I was surprised to hear that. I visit nasa.gov frequently, and
         | I've never seen this nonsense.
        
           | _jal wrote:
           | It is pretty easy to set off if you control your browser much
           | (privacy-enforcing proxies, ad blockers, etc.).
           | 
           | I haven't seen it with NASA, but I'm currently doing
           | something that trips CF's verify-your-humanity bullshit on
           | third party sites a lot. Haven't yet figured out what upsets
           | it.
        
         | Sebguer wrote:
         | To prevent bots from causing bandwidth costs to be insane?
        
       | xixixao wrote:
       | Can someone run this through ML to create a smooth animation?
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | Why? Just 3D animate it using other imagery from NASA/ESA
         | probes to map to a sphere and then fly the camera over it in
         | what ever fashion you want your pretty pictures. You're
         | confusing scientific data with pretty pictures for the sake of
         | being pretty pictures.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | What's the definition of a planet's atmosphere edge? Does it just
       | keep on thinning out to a light year and beyond or is there a
       | clear transition?
        
         | ceejayoz wrote:
         | Bit of both. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2919/earths-
         | atmosphere-a-multi...
         | 
         | 99.99997 percent is below 100km, but the exosphere is
         | considered to go as far as 10k, and maybe further:
         | 
         | > A February 2019 study using data from the NASA/European Space
         | Agency Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft
         | suggests, however, that the farthest reaches of Earth's
         | atmosphere -- a cloud of hydrogen atoms called the geocorona --
         | may actually extend nearly 391,000 miles (629,300 kilometers)
         | into space, far beyond the orbit of the Moon.
        
       | WalterGR wrote:
       | How much time elapses in that time-lapse?
       | 
       | Edit: Two hours of real-time Jupiter:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPMK_6-QrIg
        
       | pjscott wrote:
       | In case anybody was wondering "Why is the frame rate so lousy?"
       | the answer is that the probe only has about 325 bits per second
       | of downlink on average.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)
        
         | sgt wrote:
         | Would it be possible to extrapolate frames in between to give
         | one smooth flyover?
        
           | giantrobot wrote:
           | Yes but it will _look_ like there 's extrapolated frames. I'm
           | sure you'll see something like that in a YouTube video or
           | something on the Discovery channel but I don't see the point
           | of NASA doing that.
        
           | shrx wrote:
           | Nitpick: you interpolate data between two known points
           | (frames), and extrapolate beyond the first or last known
           | datapoint.
        
           | Cthulhu_ wrote:
           | And are there additional images in the probe's storage that
           | will be transferred over the coming... years?
        
         | skohan wrote:
         | What's the limiting factor on bandwidth constraints for probes
         | like this? Is it the power of the probe? Is it the distance
         | from earth?
         | 
         | I wonder if you could build a mesh network of satellites/probes
         | out farther into the solar system to get better connectivity
         | for projects like this.
        
           | rich_sasha wrote:
           | The limiting factor is power/distance^2 basically, which
           | determines the signal/noise ratio, which determines the
           | bandwidth.
           | 
           | A mesh network sounds fun, though you'd have to have a fair
           | few probes, as their orbits wouldn't be in sync. Also that
           | far from the sun, solar panela don't cut it and you need
           | nuclear thermal generators, which have a finite lifespan.
        
       | lifeisstillgood wrote:
       | Basic science is the foundation stone of the past 200 years of
       | human progress - and if anyone out there wants to put "double the
       | science budget just because" on their manifesto they can have my
       | vote.
       | 
       | I am so glad we live in an age where this is possible, and that
       | it is celebrated and respected.
       | 
       | Fantastic.
        
       | holoduke wrote:
       | 210,000 kilometers per hour. Almost 60km/40mi per second. Amazing
       | speed when you think about it. Wonder if there would be any time
       | dilation noticable if the craft ever gets captured and brought
       | back to earth.
        
         | ericbarrett wrote:
         | Similarly I wonder if there was any detectable heating from
         | kinetic interaction with dust and trace atmosphere. 60 km/sec
         | is _fast!_
        
           | orbital-decay wrote:
           | Not sure about the composition of atmosphere at those exact
           | altitudes on Jupiter, but aerodynamic heating was a serious
           | concern during Cassini's close Titan flybys, and that's
           | "just" at ~6.3km/s max. IIRC the closest one was the T-70 at
           | 880km; a lot of work has been done to make sure it won't
           | tumble or overheat. (Titan's low gravity makes its dense
           | atmosphere reach very far, so 880km is really low)
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | Relativistic effects are measurable with accurate enough clocks
         | in earth satellites (or even just taking a clock to a mountain)
         | and correction is necessary in systems with finicky time
         | requirements like GPS.
         | 
         | Incidentally, the relative speed you can napkin math estimate -
         | an object in orbit flying that close to the planet is going to
         | have escape-velocity-ish speed. It's around 60km/sec for
         | Jupiter.
        
           | atoav wrote:
           | By now I think they managed to measure relativistic effects
           | of clocks that are a few milimeters apart in terms of
           | distance from earths gravitational center.
        
             | pvg wrote:
             | Sufficiently clever experimentalists also pulled this off
             | in about 20 meters in 1959, the clever bit being ditching
             | the clocks entirely:
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound%E2%80%93Rebka_experimen
             | t
        
           | dmd wrote:
           | > taking a clock to a mountain
           | 
           | http://www.leapsecond.com/great2005/tour/
        
             | cmroanirgo wrote:
             | Fantastic! Has this been shared on HN before?
             | 
             | > _We would come back about 20 ns older compared to her
             | [the wife who stayed behind]._
             | 
             | >= _Or, the other way to look at it (since this is
             | relativity after all), is that she would become 20 ns
             | younger than us upon our return. Note to husbands: this
             | could be a useful gift idea for your wife._
        
               | pvg wrote:
               | It has, in the HN equivalent of the Archean eon
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=598090
        
             | belter wrote:
             | They also did the First Atomic Clock Wristwatch...
             | 
             | http://leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-bill/
        
         | rococode wrote:
         | It's about 0.01% the speed of light, which is definitely fast
         | enough to have a measurable impact. Even ISS astronauts
         | experience a tiny amount of time dilation (on a millisecond
         | level) and they move at much slower speeds.
        
         | Crontab wrote:
         | I've read that time moves a tiny bit slower on Earth than it
         | does in space and that it affects satellites. I wonder how much
         | difference there is for something like the Voyagers, which has
         | been in space since the 70's, and us on the ground.
        
         | arghwhat wrote:
         | As a point of reference, our solar system orbits our galaxy at
         | approximately 4 times that speed at 828 megameters per hour, so
         | 210 megameters per second isn't _that_ big a deal in the grand
         | scheme of things...
        
           | _Microft wrote:
           | Kilometer is the largest SI-prefixed variation of meter that
           | is commonly used (among physicists that I know). I would
           | rather suggest that you use scientific notation if you do not
           | want to deal with large numbers of kilometers.
        
             | arghwhat wrote:
             | We don't stop at millimeters or kilowatt, so there is
             | really no reason to stop at kilometer when megameter is
             | more appropriate.
             | 
             | Scientific notation is also fine, but "210 megameter" is in
             | my opinion easier to read than "2.1 * 10^8 meters",
             | especially for the casual reader.
             | 
             | So while I respectfully make note of your feedback, I
             | strongly disagree and stand by my choice of units. :)
        
               | ksaj wrote:
               | Given how hard it is to convince most Americans to use
               | prefixed metre measurements instead of inches, feet,
               | yards and miles, I think it would be even harder to
               | convince the world that a megametre, picometre, etc is
               | the way to go.
               | 
               | Not that I don't agree (I fully do!), the ease of using
               | multiples of 10 is way easier. But it is very difficult
               | to introduce change to the masses, no matter how sensible
               | it is.
               | 
               | The US is one of the only countries on the planet that
               | still fully stick to the old system. And they're also one
               | of the only countries that spell 'meter' instead of
               | 'metre.' For everyone else in the world, 'meter' is a
               | measuring gauge or tool, and so is everything that rhymes
               | with 'thermometer' except for the American pronunciation
               | of 'kilometre' that too many have adopted up here.
               | 
               | Likewise, adult Canadians still use pounds at the gym and
               | their body weight, and feet/inches for their height.
               | Young people are far more reasonable about measurements
               | these days.
               | 
               | Change is hard, and seems to get really messy when
               | everyone goes in different directions from the start.
        
           | arghwhat wrote:
           | > 210 megameters per second
           | 
           | Oops, _megameters per hour.
           | 
           | 210 Mm/s is a _very* big deal, with the speed of light being
           | around 299 Mm/s.
        
         | andrekandre wrote:
         | > 210,000 kilometers per hour.
         | 
         | that would get you to the moon in about one and a half hours...
         | crazy (cool)
        
         | belter wrote:
         | They are noticed in the Parker Solar Probe. At closest approach
         | it get's to 590,000 kilometers per hour (aprox 360,000 mph)
         | 
         | "Parker Solar Probe passing extremely close to the Sun; what
         | relativistic effects will it experience and how large will they
         | be?":
         | https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/348854/parker-so...
        
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       (page generated 2022-06-04 23:01 UTC)