NASA grants Juno extended lifetime lease to probe Jupiter after mysterious radio signal is discovered

09:47 GMT 24.01.2021Get a short url

Radio broadcasts from the planet Jupiter were first discovered in 1955, and over the past 66 years more and more discoveries have been made, offering tantalizing insight into how signals work.

A mission extension was granted by NASA to the Juno program, shortly after the spacecraft, orbiting Jupiter since 2016, spotted a single FM signal, likely coming from the moon on the planet Ganymede. None of these detections had previously been detected on the largest and most massive moons in the solar system.

According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory website, the robotic explorer is now expected to continue its mission of accumulating data on our solar system’s largest planet and its dozen moons, at least until September 2025 or when ‘it will stop working.

Research will be extended to the larger Jovian system, which includes Jupiter’s rings and large moons, which are of particular interest as some are known to have water (especially Europa). In 2015, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted evidence that Ganymede has an underground ocean.

This latest discovery puts the moons on a shortlist of the solar system’s most likely locations for primitive life.

“Since its first orbit in 2016, Juno has delivered one revelation after another about the inner workings of this gigantic gas giant. With the extended mission, we will answer fundamental questions that arose during Juno’s main mission as we go beyond the planet to explore Jupiter’s ring system and the Galilean satellites, ”said Scott Bolton from the Southwest. Research Institute.

“ Milestone ” signal sparks speculation

Radio broadcasts around Jupiter were initially detected in 1955, initiating extensive studies by researchers.
However, a major radio broadcast from one of Jupiter’s largest moons, Ganymede, was observed by Juno for five seconds as it flew at 50 km per second, or 111,847 mph. The waves were detected in magnetic lines connecting Ganymede to the polar regions of the gas giant. The results were published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.

As much as UFO hunters would prefer to explain the signal as being connected to an extraterrestrial reality, the phenomenon is considered to be the result of electrons amplifying radio waves, in a process called cyclotron maser instability (CMI).

“It’s not ET, it’s more of a natural function,” said NASA spokesman Patrick Wiggens, quoted by KTVX in Utah.

The phenomenon is related to the physical process, although shorter, which causes the appearance of the Northern Lights on Earth.

“It is believed that the spiraling electrons in Jupiter’s magnetic field are the cause of the radio noise we hear,” NASA explained.

The Juno spacecraft was launched to Jupiter in 2011, tasked with exploring how the planet formed and developed over time, with the mission deadline set at 2021.

The now-expanded mission includes 42 additional orbits of Jupiter, as well as flyovers of its moons Ganymede, Io and Europa.

Juno is on schedule to pass over Ganymede on June 7, 2021, then rush to Europa.
Polar cyclones at Jupiter’s poles will be studied in detail, and NASA hopes to undertake the very first detailed study of the weak ring system circling the planet.

“Mission designers have done an incredible job crafting an extended mission that preserves the mission’s most valuable onboard resource – fuel. Gravity assists from multiple satellite flyovers to steer our spacecraft through the Jovian system while providing a host of scientific opportunities, ”said Ed Hirst, Juno project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).