Juno space probe dives on Jupiter

FORGET Cyclone Debbie. NASA’s Juno probe just buzzed Jupiter, peering deep into the mysterious mayhem that is the gas giant’s perfect summer day.

FORGET Cyclone Debbie. NASA’s Juno probe just took a dive on Jupiter, capturing the mysterious turmoil that is the gas giant’s perfect summer day.

The hobbled space probe, which has been forced to adopt a generally more distant orbit than planned due to issues with its thrusters, is making a fly-by over the planets cloud tops today.

It made its closest pass earlier this morning, skimming some 4400km above its tumultuous atmosphere at more than 57.8 kilometres per second.

My latest #Jupiter science flyby is complete. All science instruments + #JunoCam were operating to collect data https://t.co/8F6CesOVta pic.twitter.com/OvGM9yXv26

— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) March 27, 2017

And it’s a risky business.

Intense radiation clings close to the biggest planet in our solar system, posing a risk to the hardened space probes’ electronics.

But the first data has begun to stream in.

This enhanced-colour image of a mysterious dark spot on Jupiter seems to reveal a Jovian “galaxy” of swirling storms. Picture: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko

“This will be our fourth science pass — the fifth close fly-by of Jupiter of the mission — and we are excited to see what new discoveries Juno will reveal,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

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Juno has eight different sensors pointed at Jupiter, and all are active during this close pass in an attempt to peer as deep as possible into its clouds.

Stay tuned for #JunoCam images in coming days. We’re inviting you to help with the image processing https://t.co/hpBVvz4W0H #citizenscience pic.twitter.com/rM49OPRUVS

— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) March 27, 2017

The probe, which was launched in 2011 and arrived in July last year, has already discovered that the distinctive coloured belts that give Jupiter its colours extend deep into the interior.

Jupiter’s magnetic field is also proving to be more complex than expected, and the bright auroras cascading over its poles appear to be caused by dust blasted into space from the volcanic moon Io.

#Jupiter from below. Cyclones swirl around the Jovian south pole in a new citizen scientist-created #JunoCam image https://t.co/oFxsj7K1tH pic.twitter.com/zjakBGBEbA

— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) February 9, 2017