Do you know what the giant planet in the solar system is? We all know it is Jupiter.

Jupiter is in fifth place in the solar system. There is an atmosphere as in the Earth. That atmosphere consists of several types of gases. This is well depicted in the pictures that are taken using Juno cam. How is that evidence, and what is Juno cam?

Those are the questions that arise in your mind. In the next paragraphs, your questions will be answered. This is the first question. How is that evident from the photographs taken by Juno cam? Juno cam is a part of the Juno spacecraft. Juno cam is used to take photographs of Jupiter. Visible rays used to take photos in Juno cam. There is a telescope on this camera. Zoom photos can be taken with the help of the telescope part. Now I would like to tell you about the Juno spacecraft, but before that, we have talked about Jupiter because there are many interesting facts.  

Jupiter

  As I above told, Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system. Jupiter has the most massive atmosphere than other planets. Jupiter is known as the Red Giant. This was named after the Roman God Jupiter. This is the fourth brightest object in the sky. The other three are the sun, the moon, and venus. Mass of this planet is about 1.9×10​27 kg, and the diameter is approximately about 139,822 km. Jupiter has an 11.862-year orbital period. Nowadays, the mass of Jupiter takes to describe the masses of other planets in comparison. It is known as Jupiter Mass. Jupiter has a super and powerful magnetic field, and this magnetic field powerful as 14 times the Earth’s magnetic field. There are some similarities between the Earth and Jupiter. The first one is the aurora. Jupiter has an aurora as in the Earth. Bit the aurora in the Jupiter cannot be seen with the naked eye because this is in the ultraviolet range. Another similarity is that there are two south poles and north pole as in the Earth. As well as that there are magnetic north and magnetic south in the Jupiter. As I mentioned above, Jupiter is called the red giant. There may be a particular reason to called Jupiter in this name. What would be the reason? I am sure you know this. This is a big secret. There is a large red patch or a spot on Jupiter’s surface. This spot is bigger than the Earth, as well. When scientists were continuing the research, they got to know that the spot spread very deep in Jupiter’s atmosphere. After that, scientists found out that the temperature in the upper layers of the red spot is lower than the surrounding environment, while the temperature of the lower layers is higher than the surrounding environment. The maximum height of this spot is about 8km. Not only red spots but also there are white and brown spots too. From the Juno photographs, we had seen some shadows have fallen in aurora. Scientists explained that this is because of a powerful magnetic flux. In other than that, they explained inside of the red spot. There is a massive storm. As well as that scientists say that can be finished after 400-500 years. Scientists assumed that how Jupiter came to the solar system using the grand tack hypothesis. This is a series of the collision between various celestial bodies. They said that it began around 700,000 years ago.

There are 79 known moons in the Jupiter with the 4 Galilean moons. Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are the Galilean moons. Io is the largest and the closest moon to Jupiter. If you observe Jupiter through a small telescope, you can see the four moons around Jupiter and the cloud belt around Jupiter. But when you observe through a large telescope, the big red spot will be visible. Jupiter has another name. It is the solar system’s vacuum cleaner. It became a vacuum cleaner because of its powerful magnetic field. When there is comet rain, it is a protection to the inner solar system. Even scientists said that there should be more mass in the past than present mass. They hypothesized that Jupiter is shrinking with time. The temperature and the pressure increased to the center of Jupiter rapidly. 

This center is called the core. This is increasing according to the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism. Here I would like to describe some more about the Kelvin – Helmholtz mechanism. You know all the planets in the solar system gets sunlight. Jupiter is the same as the others. It gets the sunlight from the sun like the other planets. But the Jupiter reflects sunlight more than it gets. What is the reason for it? Jupiter produces sunlight on its own as similar to the amount it gets. When reflecting, Jupiter reflects all the sunlight it has. This is called a Kelvin – Helmholtz mechanism. Due to this process, the planet Jupiter is shrinking. In April 2017, with the help of a large telescope in Chile, scientists had found the “Great Cold Spot” in Jupiter’s thermosphere. This spot is changing its size and color gradually.

As I mentioned above, Jupiter has a mixture of various gases in the atmosphere. Examples for some of them are liquid metallic hydrogen, helium, molecular hydrogen, methane, water vapor, carbon, hydrogen sulfide, neon, and sulfur. There are other gases too.

Another thing is Jupiter covered with clouds containing ammonia. As well as that there are some essential points that we shouldn’t discuss earlier. Now it’s time to see them.

As you know, there are clouds around Jupiter. It is unique for Jupiter. Jupiter has the shortest day among the other planets. It is about 9 hours and 55 minutes. There is a ring system around Jupiter. From the above facts, I think you have got more knowledge about Jupiter. We are living on Earth, but we know more details about outer space. Scientists use spacecraft to find details of the other planets. Like that, Juno helps to find about Jupiter.  

Juno 

 Lockheed Martin makes Juno. It is a NASA space probe. It launched from the Earth 2011. It had entered the Jupiter atmosphere in 2016. At present, it has completed rotating 21 rounds through a polar orbit. In the beginning, scientists thought that it would be destroyed after finishing 7 or 8 rounds, but now they say Juno is capable of rotating about 36 rounds. All the parts in the spacecraft are critical. When the damaging of these parts begins, scientists had planned to destroy this intentionally after entering Juno to Jupiter’s atmosphere. They have got some evidence that there are some living beings in the Europa moon of Jupiter. Some harm can happen to Europa living beings if the Juno destroys in the outer atmosphere of Jupiter. Therefore scientists had planned to demolish Juno after entering the Jupiter atmosphere. Juno is a very significant spacecraft because solar panels are using instead of radioisotope thermoelectric generators. (RTG). Juno went to Jupiter to fulfill various tasks. Especially to find out a gravity field and about the magnetic field. Juno is the second spacecraft that went to Jupiter. Three solar panels are using in Jupiter. From using those three solar panels, 400W power can be generated. As I above told, all the parts of Juno are significant. Now I am describing the importance one by one.  

Juno cam

  It has a telescope part that can take zoomed smooth photographs. Photographs can be taken using visible rays. All the photos of Jupiter had taken by Juno cam. 

Microwave Radiometer

 This is used to measure the frequency of electromagnetic waves. The storms in the north pole and the south pole can be observed using this. Not only storms but also there are thunderstorms in both poles.  

IR spectrometer

This is used to measure the temperature in different places in the atmosphere. Also, the traveling direction can be found using this part. 

Magnetometer

  As you know, there is a powerful magnetic field in Jupiter. This is used to measure the power of the magnetic field.  

Spectrometer

  Measure the nature of the aurora in the ultraviolet region. Jovian Energetic Particle Detector instrument, Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment are some other parts containing in Juno.

 Finally, from here, I think I told you more new details about Jupiter and Juno. Therefore I think this is useful for you.