Pluto Probe Makes Discoveries at Jupiter

Riding with Robots writes "No, it's not an accident due to a metric-to-English-units error. In February, the New Horizons probe passed through the Jupiter system on its way to Pluto, and we saw some spectacular pictures. Now, the science teams have published detailed scientific results, along with new images and movies. The probe's instruments saw clouds form from ammonia welling up from Jupiter's lower atmosphere, and heat-induced lighting strikes in the polar regions, and fresh eruptions on the volcanic moon Io. New Horizons also captured the clearest images ever of the tenuous Jovian ring system, where scientists spotted clumps of debris that may indicate a recent impact inside the rings, or some more exotic phenomenon." I bet Neil DeGrasse Tyson will be on 7 Discovery channel specials talking about these new discoveries inside of the week. Hope he's nicer than he was to poor Pluto :)

Comments

Oblig

[$RANDOMLUSER]

All these worlds are yours.
Except Europa.
Attempt no landings there.

Re:Oblig

[Phanatic1a]

Did you catch a look at those Io shots?

Jesus. We've sent, what, 5 probes close enough to get a look at Io, and every one of them saw significant vulcanism? Pretty safe bet then that it's erupting like that constantly, huge lakes of glowing lava and sulfur plumes 200 miles high.

I'll take my chances with Europa.

Re:Oblig

[locofungus]

From the linked article:

In addition, New Horizons spotted the infrared glow from at least 36 Io volcanoes, and measured lava temperatures up to 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit, similar to many terrestrial volcanoes.

Tim.

Re:Oblig

[volcanopele]

I should point out that the "at least 36 Io volcanoes" number comes from the LEISA instrument, a near-infrared detector on the New Horizons spacecraft and does not include the field of bright spots seen near the sub- and anti-Jovian points (the points on the surface of Io that point directly toward and away from Jupiter, respectively). These spots are likely caused by gases above volcanoes in this area excited by Jupiter magnetic field. They could still be active volcanoes, but their thermal emission is too slight to be seen by the LEISA instrument.

money well spent

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever a camera is hurled near solar system big planets, it catches something interesting. We should establish permanent automatic research stations in orbit(s) of at least Jupiter, if not all of them. It is scientific treasure-trove.

Re:money well spent

[rbanffy]

Galileo was pretty much a "permanent" monitoring station, at least as far as space probes go. It was around Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 and gathered a whole lot of information. So is Cassini around Saturn and Mars has a good couple of them orbiting it.

That said, I agree it would be clever to design and assemble generic space probes with a generic instrument package and launch them towards some promising targets. If we can assemble a dozen of simple probes (or modular ones - i.e. inner solar system solar power module x deep space RTG power, custom instrument packages) instead of one twelve times more complex and launch them towards interesting targets it would give us a lot of coverage on a lot of other nearby objects for the same price (and in far less time). If something turns out to be more than an uninteresting lump of rock or ice, we could always send another probe with a custom instrument package. And, if the original one still has propellant on board, it could always be re-missioned to something else.

Maybe we could focus not on "Back to the Moon", "See Pluto" and "Probe Mars" specific projects and create a continuous exploration infrastructure that could serve us well for decades. If we focus too much on learning how to build a better spacecraft while building the spacecraft, the exploration becomes the least interesting thing in the project. If we focus more on the destination than on the vehicle, chances are we will get spacecrafts out to the launch pad on less time, within budget and more frequently than today. And by building more of them, launching more of them and testing more of them, we will end up learning just as much about how to build a better spacecraft.

This one-off custom-designed space probe business can become costly real quick.

Re:money well spent

[Tablizer]

Speaking of which, why don't probes ever have true color cameras? What's with all the false color images from probes?

Most probes don't use the same kind of color capture technique that "house cameras" offer. They use filters. If you want color, you take images under different filters (select a given wavelength to "see" with). This increases the sensativey range. New Horizons is certainly capable of using many filters to produce color images, but it may have had to weigh different factors. For one, NH does not have independent instrument platforms like Voyagers did. Instead, it has to rotate the whole probe body to aim many of its instruments. This was done to cut costs and increase reliability (stuck joints were common in the Voyagers).

Thus, the camera may have had to share time with other instruments, meaning they may have had to sacrafice multi-wavelength imaging. Generally they will very roughly make one in ten images be multi-wavelength as a compromize, or pick a single "best" wavelength most of the time. It just may be that most of the interesting events happened between the multi wavelength images.

When you are the fastest probe ever launched, you risk missing something when you "blink".

Re:Pluto probe makes discoveries at Uranus

[somersault]

It would have sounded a lot better if this were about Uranus:

"In February, the New Horizons probe passed through Uranus system on its way to Pluto, and we saw some spectacular pictures. Now, the science teams have published detailed scientific results, along with new images and movies. The probe's instruments saw clouds form from ammonia welling up from Uranus's lower atmosphere, and heat-induced lighting strikes in the polar regions, and fresh eruptions on Uranus' moons. New Horizons also captured the clearest images ever of the tenuous Uranian ring system, where scientists spotted clumps of debris that may indicate a recent impact inside the rings, or some more exotic phenomenon."

Kind of difficult to take space seriously since Uranus was named.

And as a result of these new findings...

[dpbsmith]

... the IAU has decided that Jupiter is not a planet.

Re:And as a result of these new findings...

[Billosaur]

Actually, many people have called Jupiter a failed star.

Re:And as a result of these new findings...

[BadAnalogyGuy]

LEAVE JUPITER ALONE!!!

(yes, just like yelling)

Re:Is it just me, or?

[Stooshie]

... instead of reading more astronomy magazines ...

Ahem! There, fixed that for you.

As any astronomer would tell you, mixing up the two is a capital offence.

Re:Planets != People

[mooingyak]

Careful... anthropomorphic doesn't like it when you confuse it with anthropic.

Re:You know

[argStyopa]

Even if they found he was beaten to death by a wolflike humanoid, they'd deny it or cover it up, because the government knows that nobody believes theories about DeGrasse gnoll anyway.

Re:Pluto probe makes discoveries at Uranus

[Nimey]

We should give up and rename Uranus to Goatse.

All irreverance aside, fantastic stuff!

[decipher_saint]

I mean, each paper sounds completely intriguing:

Polar Lightning and Decadal-Scale Cloud Variability on Jupiter
Kevin H. Baines, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Io Volcanism Seen by New Horizons: A Major Eruption of the Tvashtar Volcano
John R. Spencer, Southwest Research Institute

Clump Detections and Limits on Moons in Jupiter's Ring System
Mark R. Showalter, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute

Jupiter Cloud Composition, Stratification, Convection & Wave Motion: A View from New Horizons
Dennis C. Reuter, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Io's Atmospheric Response to Eclipse: UV Aurorae Observations
Kurt D. Retherford, Southwest Research Institute

Energetic Particles in the Jovian Magnetotail
Ralph L. McNutt Jr., Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Diverse Plasma Populations and Structures in Jupiter's Magnetotail
David J. McComas, Southwest Research Institute

New Horizons Mapping of Europa and Ganymede
William M. Grundy, Lowell Observatory

Jupiter's Nightside Airglow and Aurora
G. Randall Gladstone, Southwest Research Institute

These are all highly fascinating subjects each worth a read let alone the fantastic gallery: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos.html

I completely support the New Horizons team, they're doing amazing things from behind a computer screen. Something I honestly wish I could do.

Re:All irreverance aside, fantastic stuff!

[Hatta]

So here's what I don't understand. They captured some beautiful images the fluid dynamics of gasses mixing in jupiter's atmosphere. How is it that these gasses can keep mixing and not reach equilibrium? I see the same schlieren patterns if I add some glycerol to some H2O and invert the tube a couple times. But invert it a little more and they're gone. What is jupiter doing to keep its atmosphere from doing the same? Are some of the gasses in its atmosphere immiscible or something?

Re:I propose a name change

[somersault]

I dunno - Sphincter Majoris has a certain ring to it

(pun not actually intended, but hey, it works)

Re:unlikely

[camperdave]

So, if a permanent automatic system was installed there, it would give us exactly the same day by day, year from year.

Maybe it would, and maybe it wouldn't. We don't know. Does the vulcanism on Io go through seasonal variations? Does it only happen on Io, or are there other geologically active moons in orbit? The Cassini probe showed that we can park a satellite in orbit around these far planets, and obviously a permanently stationed device is going to give far more detailed data than one that's whizzing past. I think it's wasteful to launch these probes and have them leave the solar system when they could be inserted into orbit around a planet and give us years worth of useful data. As far as I know, apart from Earth, the only planets we have probes around are Mars and Saturn... and maybe Venus.

Re:unlikely

[thsths]

> Actually, a research satellite in orbit around Jupiter would be useful for studying atmospheric processes there

Ok, but who is going to listing to the Jupiter weather forecast? I would much rather have a reliable prediction for the weather right here during the week to come.

Re:Twin planets

[stdarg]

Interesting! I didn't know you could get urine out of Uranus.

Re:Pluto probe makes discoveries at Uranus

[fr4nk]

Fry: Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus.
Leela: I don't get it.
Professor: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
Fry: Oh. What's it called now?
Professor: Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you.
Fry: Hehe, no, no, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here.

The Jupiter System?

[Boronx]

Jupiter's not a system, he's a god ... a scoundrel. He'll smite you for calling him a system.