Latest Moons of Jupiter Stories
The Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) proposal to study the moons of Jupiter is leading the pack of proposed missions. The mission would launch in 2022 to study Jupiter's moons and determine whether any of them are capable of supporting life. JUICE, according to BBC News, is waiting for a European space committee to meet and discuss the mission, along with other contenders, in May. The spacecraft in the mission would study three of Jupiter's Galilean moons, using gravity of the large...
Scientists have seen auroras dancing around above the giant ice planet Uranus by using the Hubble Space Telescope. The Uranian light show consisted of short-lived, faint, glowing dots, a show completely different than that seen on planet Earth. The researchers detected the luminous spots twice on the dayside of Uranus, which is the side that is visible to Hubble. Unlike auroras on Earth, the newly detected auroras on Uranus appear to only last a couple of minutes. Auroras are a...
A team of scientists led by Arizona State University has produced the first complete geologic map of Jupiter’s moon, Io. Published by the US Geological Survey, the new map reveals geologically unique features, volcanoes, and lava flows as well as some relative ages of the moon. Galileo first discovered Io more than 400 years ago. Io is the largest and innermost moon to orbit the planet Jupiter and has been the subject of many scientific studies as well as intense observation. Existing...
New images from Cassini are giving scientists and amateur astronomers new insight into the jet streams of Jupiter. The team pieced together images taken from Cassini in 2000 to create a video, animating the wave that is disturbing Jupiter’s jet waves. These findings are part of an in-depth study that was published in the April 2012 issue of Icarus. Amy Simon-Miller is leading the research. “This is the first time anyone has actually seen direct wave motion in one of Jupiter’s jet...
Researchers report this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected oxygen on one of Saturn's moons. They said their finding increases the likelihood of finding the ingredients for life on one of the moons orbiting gas giants. The ice moon, Dione, has no liquid water and does not have the proper conditions to support life, Andrew Coates of the University College London said. However, he said that it is possible that other moons of...
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Data from a NASA planetary mission have provided scientists evidence of what appears to be a body of liquid water, equal in volume to the North American Great Lakes, beneath the icy surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The data suggest there is significant exchange between Europa's icy shell and the ocean beneath. This information could bolster arguments that Europa's global...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online [ Watch the Video ] Scientists from The University of Texas at Austin said they have discovered a body of liquid water the volume of the North American Great Lakes inside one of Jupiter's moons. The team said that the water could represent a potential habitat for life, and many more lakes might exist throughout the shallow regions of Europa's shell. The lake is covered by floating ice shelves that appear to be collapsing, which...
Skeptical challenge actually proves Billy Meier published scientific information about Jupiter five months before NASA; astronomer refuses to look at information indicating extraterrestrial source is only possible conclusion (PRWEB) October 31, 2011 According to NASA, the most important discovery of the 1979 Voyager mission to Jupiter was that its moon, Io, was the most volcanically active body in the solar system. The mission also established that there were rings around Jupiter, some...
Computer models of asteroid impact debris from Earth to other planets show 100 times more particles end up on Mars than prior studies have shown. The highest-energy impact simulations show debris being flung into the planetary orbits and eventually finding its way to Jupiter. Two moons of which may be amenable to some forms of Earth-based life, BBC News is reporting. Panspermia is a theory that occupies much of meteoritic research, primarily that the precursors to life, or living...
NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully launched in a dramatic fashion on Friday and is now on its way to unlock secrets about the planet Jupiter. The 4-ton spacecraft lifted off from launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 12:25 p.m. (EDT) and is only the second spacecraft to have its coordinates set towards Jupiter. NASA delayed the original 11:34 a.m. (EDT) launch time due to issues relating to the Centaur helium system on the Atlas V rocket it flew on into...
Latest Moons of Jupiter Reference Libraries
Satellite -- A satellite is an object that orbits another object. With sufficient tangential velocity, the object does not collide with the primary object it orbits, but maintains a distance from that object as the rate at which it falls towards that object is similar to the rate that it travels away, thus the object orbits the primary object and becomes a satellite. In other words: gravitational force serves as the centripetal force needed to make the object circle the primary...
Galileo Probe -- The Galileo probe was an unmanned probe sent by NASA to study the planet Jupiter and its moons. Named after the astronomer Galileo Galilei, it was launched on October 18 1989 by the Space Shuttle Atlantis and arrived at Jupiter on December 7 1995. Galileo's launch had been significantly delayed by the hiatus in Space Shuttle launches that occurred after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and new safety protocols that were implemented as a result forced Galileo to use...
Retrograde Motion -- Retrograde motion is the orbital motion of a body in a direction opposite that which is normal to spatial bodies within a given system. 'Retrograde' derives from the Latin words retro, backwards, and gradus, step. In the Solar system, mostly everything rotates in the same sense: all major planets orbit the Sun counterclockwise as seen from the pole star (Polaris). Most planets spin in the same sense, including Earth. The same happens with the orbital motions of the...
Planetary Ring -- A planetary ring is a ring of dust and other small particles orbiting around a planet in a flat disc-shaped region. The most spectacular and famous planetary rings are those around Saturn, but all four of the solar system's gas giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) possess ring systems of their own. The origin of planetary rings is not precisely known, but they are thought to be unstable and dissipate over the course of tens or hundreds of millions of...
Jupiter's Moon Himalia -- Himalia is Jupiter's tenth moon. Himalia is 110 miles (170 km) in diameter and orbits 7,000,000 miles (11,480,000 km) from Jupiter. Himalia has a mass of 9.5 x 1018kg. It orbits Jupiter in 250.5662 (Earth) days. Very little is known about Himalia. Himalia was discovered by C. Perrine in 1904. Orbital eccentricity is 0.15798. Orbital inclination is 27.63 degrees. Orbital period is 250.5662 days. Rotational period is 0.4 day. ----- NASA...
