NASA Releases First-Ever Close-Up Images of Jupiter's North Pole (npr.org)

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NASA Releases First-Ever Close-Up Images of Jupiter's North Pole (npr.org)

Posted by BeauHD on Friday September 2, 2016 @07:00PM from the pinch-and-zoom dept.

NASA has released the first close-up images of Jupiter's north pole captured by the Juno spacecraft, taken during the probe's first flyby of the planet with its instruments switched on. "The images show storm systems and weather activity unlike anything previously seen on any of our solar system's gas-giant planets," writes Tony Greicius via NASA. NPR reports: "NASA also released an image of Jupiter's southern aurora, a unique view that could be captured only by a spacecraft close to Jupiter. The aurora occurs when energized particles from the sun interact with Jupiter's atmosphere near the planet's poles. The space agency also released audio of what the aurora sounds like if you convert it to a frequency the human ear can hear. The pictures and data were collected Aug. 27, when June made the first of some three dozen scheduled close encounters with Jupiter. At its closest approach, the spacecraft was a mere 2,500 miles above the planet's cloud tops." The images can be found here. You can also listen to Jupiter's auroras via YouTube. Spoiler: they sound like a dial-up modem.

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Santa? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 19:03 · Score: 0

Fortress of Solitude?
Jesus?
Hm?
1. Re: Santa? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 00:18 · Score: 1
  
  Because of its unique magnetic field Jupiter in fact has 17 north poles, providing the much needed floor space that Santa needed with Earth's population explosion.
Not a dial-up modem. by Mal-2 · 2016-09-02 19:12 · Score: 2

That really doesn't sound anything like a dial-up modem, but I think I know what it is.
It's just the newest Aphex Twin release.

--
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
1. Re:Not a dial-up modem. by Tablizer · 2016-09-02 19:38 · Score: 1
  
  To me it sounds like Darth Vader stuck in a jet engine, especially the middle part.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
2. Re:Not a dial-up modem. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 22:27 · Score: 0
  
  -Darth Vader: "You don't know the power of a jet engine! I must stay in the current."
  -Son, from the plane maintenance: "I will not get into the current, and you will be forced to grab me."
  -Darth Vader: "If that is your destiny."
  -Son, from the plane maintenance: "Search the fuel injectors, father. You can do this. I feel the burn near you. Let go of your cape!"
  -Darth Vader: "It is too late, for me, son."
  Whooosshh!
3. Re:Not a dial-up modem. by SweetDrake · 2016-09-03 01:58 · Score: 2
  
  Actually this sounds like the tunes commonly used in every sci-fi show I used to watch in my childhood. You know... the kind that's supposed to thrill you with that great wonder vibe when scrolling through starry SPAAACE!!!
Impressive... by hcs_$reboot · 2016-09-02 19:17 · Score: 1

...shots yet to come. Hey, we know Juno went through Hell to take those pictures. But the Voyagers have accustomed us to juicier images. That's only the beginning anyway, and due to distance, bandwidth etc... we'll get better soon, hopefully.

--
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
1. Re:Impressive... by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2016-09-02 19:28 · Score: 1
  
  I was in Hell just a couple of weeks ago--didn't see any sign of it there.
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
2. Re:Impressive... by hcs_$reboot · 2016-09-02 19:34 · Score: 1
  
  Did you look up? Juno was right 4,000 km above you :-)
  
  --
  Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
3. Re:Impressive... by Rei · 2016-09-02 20:45 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Good to know I'm not the only person underwhelmed by Juno.
  I tried to get myself excited about this one, but I just can't. The target is way down on my list of "unsolved things in the solar system to investigate", and the mission profile uninteresting. I was telling myself, well, at least you're going to get a bunch of pretty pictures out of it. Well, honestly, these aren't that great, and this was the closest pass. The quality is underwhelming, and at least to my eye the poles look basically like the rest of the planet, just with more upwelling-driven storms and less banding effects.
  Of all of the ways NASA could have spent $1,1 billion...
  Well, maybe there will at least be some interesting papers that come out of it. Onward to OSIRIS-REx, another billion-plus dollar mission that I find myself trying to be excited for in its own right rather than thinking about the other ways that money could have been allocated. But at least we get a sample return out of that. Which is not just useful in its own right but also helps advance our experience with robotic sample returns, which is pretty limited (Luna, Stardust, and Hayabusa... and the Luna tech is obsolete). That said, the sample return results from Hayabusa were pretty underwhelming. Basically, "Hey, the sample return from this LL chondrite is just like LL chondrites on Earth". Now, Stardust had some interesting work come from it... but I just have a nagging feeling that we're spending a billion dollars to get a "Hey, the sample return from this carbonaceous asteroid is just like carbonaceous chondrites on Earth" moment.
  
  --
  "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
4. Re:Impressive... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 04:04 · Score: 1
  
  This is primarily a plasma physics experiment in an environment more extreme than what we've looked at before. We've learned a lot about fundamental plasma physics and space weather from simple satellites in high Earth orbit or solar orbits near the Earth. Many of those had no cameras at all, and were virtually unmentioned in popular news (or even Slashdot...). The results of such work can have actual, practical terrestrial impact, as the results are often heavily used and cited by work trying to understand magnetic reconnection and implications for things like magnetic confinement of plasma.
  And as far as unsolved things in the solar system, the internal structure and weather of Jupiter are pretty high up there, as also teaches us more than just about space, but about the behavior of materials under extreme conditions.
  
  Of all of the ways NASA could have spent $1,1 billion...
  The budget unfortunately nearly doubled due to in part delays... delays from restricted budgets that dragged the project on for more years than originally planned.
  And of course there are lots of ways that money could have been spent that would be more exciting or make prettier pictures, but that is not NASA's primary goal. A large amount of money gets spent on unphotogenic science research, both practical and fundamental. In this case, having imaging spectrometers in both the UV and mid-IR range is far more useful than just more visible light images. If advanced spectrally resolved images like that don't interest you or run afoul of your aesthetic interests, fine, but maybe then you shouldn't be complaining on a technical forum about it. Complaining that it isn't exciting enough is a couple steps short of just saying that $1 billion should have been spent on a national monster truck administration instead, a modern half of bread and circuses.
5. Re:Impressive... by Rei · 2016-09-03 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  We've learned a lot about fundamental plasma physics and space weather from simple satellites in high Earth orbit
  And how many of them cost $1,1B?
  
  more exciting or make prettier pictures,
  
  I'm not talking about "pretty pictures" either. You consider "the internal structure and weather of Jupiter" as pretty high up there on the priority list. How does that even compare to other things we could be spending our money on? Let me just toss a couple examples out there.
  * Finding out whether the solar system's subsurface oceans could be harbouring life as we know it. Some of said bodies which spray their contents straight out into space.
  * Finding out whether bodies such as Titan could be harbouring life *not* as we know it
  * Unraveling the steps that led up to life as we know it, and where we should look for life beyond our solar system.
  * Finding out *anything* about the diverse range of large KBOs, the most numerous large bodies in the solar system, a class that we know is diverse, and of which we've seen precisely one - a mission that blew away all of our expectations as to what such a body would be like in terms of diversity and geological activity.
  * Vising a Jupiter trojan, bodies that again we know next to nothing about
  * Visiting the exposed core of a protoplanet (aka, 10 Psyche)
  * Stopping the long-term ignoring of Earth's hellish twin Venus, the easiest planet in the solar system to get to and yet one that we know embarrassingly little about.
  * Actually getting an orbiter to each of our two ice giants for the first time ever, for crying out loud.
  Really, Juno takes priority over these sorts of things? Do you know what $1,1B could do toward advancing our understanding of them?
  But hey, thanks for assuming that all I care about is "pretty pictures". I really hate that whole "because you're not excited about the particular aspects that I'm excited about, that means that you're some sort of moron who just wants to oggle at pretty pictures" attitude.
  You said a few other things, but I had trouble hearing you because your horse was too damn high.
  
  --
  "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
6. Re:Impressive... by Applehu+Akbar · 2016-09-03 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  Rather than returning an asteroid sample to Earth, I would rather see a probe that could expand on Rosetta-style station keeping to make multiple contacts with an asteroid and do microscopic analysis of its surface at each place. Such an asteroidal assay mission would be the first step toward mining.
7. Re: Impressive... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 05:09 · Score: 0
  
  Well said. I'd like to borrow his horse, I have to go into town to get some milk.
8. Re:Impressive... by Applehu+Akbar · 2016-09-03 05:12 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, and just for the snark value I would name my mission New Gunner Girls.
9. Re:Impressive... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 14:37 · Score: 1
  
  And how many of them cost $1,1B?
  The Cluster mission cost about $700 M (2016 USD) originally close to the original Juno budget of $700M... but the suffered launch failure and was important enough that they spent another $350 M to rebuild and relaunch... so yeah, a total of more than a billion dollars. The results from this were impressive enough that NASA is building an updated version of the mission, MMS, with a $950M budget... that is now going to go over by $100-200M from the looks of things.
  
  I'm not talking about "pretty pictures" either.
  
  Let me quote your previous post:
  
  I was telling myself, well, at least you're going to get a bunch of pretty pictures out of it. Well, honestly, these aren't that great, and this was the closest pass. The quality is underwhelming, and at least to my eye the poles look basically like the rest of the planet, just with more upwelling-driven storms and less banding effects.
  You didn't just bring up "pretty pictures", but spent several sentences talking about it. The reply also spent a couple sentences on it, but the majority of the post was talking about what the probe was actually doing, so that seems quite proportionate.
  
  Do you know what $1,1B could do toward advancing our understanding of them?
  Do you? Some of those prospects had proposals that would have cost more. Others that proposed to cost less are still in consideration by NASA, including Venus, KBO and Titan missions. If anything, what killed some of those is the insistence on manned missions to Mars and the need to ramp up study of Mars at the cost of other solar system science, because for example Insight is what won out over a trip to Titan. Several $100M has now been wasted by NASA too due to delaying launches of projects like Juno and Insight that would easily covered the cost of another cheaper mission too. But despite that being political motivated it gets swept into individual project budgets to make the particular science is more expensive than it should have been.
  Regardless, yes, a lot of people seem to agree that missions like Juno were more important than what you listed, considering not only was Juno funded, but many missions before and more upcoming ones to study the same areas of plasma and planetary science.
  
  I really hate that whole "because you're not excited about the particular aspects that I'm excited about, that means that you're some sort of moron who just wants to oggle at pretty pictures" attitude.
  Except that is not what the majority of the post was about... instead there were multiple examples of what this mission does, why it is considered important and is important to multiple fields. It is one thing to have a mission that improves knowledge of just one body, but much rarer to have missions that generate knowledge applicable to multiple bodies, including Earth, and improves fundamental science.
  To reiterate:
  
  If advanced spectrally resolved images like that don't interest you or run afoul of your aesthetic interests, fine
  
  There is nothing wrong with not being excited about this. However, that is different from insisting it isn't important when you seem to disregard the actual goals of the project and are unware of the context the project has among other previous research, while still talking about "pretty pictures."
  Usually you have reasonable to insightful things to say about science articles, but today it sounds like you're talking out of your rear. You can't blame this on being distracted by someone being on a high horse, but instead are actively more interested in arguing over "pretty pictures" more than actual Juno relevant science.
10. Re:Impressive... by Rei · 2016-09-03 20:36 · Score: 1
  
  And how many of them cost $1,1B?
  The Cluster mission cost about $700 M (2016 USD) originally close to the original Juno budget of $700M... but the suffered launch failure and was important enough that they spent another $350 M to rebuild and relaunch
  So we're going to combine Cluster and Cluster II to try to find something even close in terms of budget, are we? Which together represent a total of 8 separate satellites built in the largest orbital plasma science mission conducted to date, taught us far more about plasma interactions than Juno ever will, and which even with a launch failure (something that was no fault of their own, unlike Juno's nearly 60% budget overrun) was $100m cheaper than Juno.
  Yes, I think Juno's funds could have done far more good elsewhere.
  
  You didn't just bring up "pretty pictures"
  Apparently you don't know what the phrase "at least" means. Apparently in your world, "at least" means "the primary purpose and all that one cares about", rather than "a consolation prize for an overbudget, underwhelming mission". I'd been trying to generate some excitement for myself by telling myself - to repeat - that at least there would be some nice pictures out of it. And if there was a mission that you were underwhelmed with, I don't doubt in the least that you would do the same. And if even that turned out to be underwhelming, I don't doubt that you'd take that as an opportunity to snipe at the mission itself. And I furthermore don't doubt that if someone responded to your disinterest in the mission as if you're a nitwit that wants a National Monster Truck administration, you'd be a bit ticked off about it as well.
  
  Do you know what $1,1B could do toward advancing our understanding of them?
  Do you?
  Yes, and the fact that you have to ask means that I need to turn this back around and ask, do you? Every last thing I mentioned has active mission proposals for it at New Frontiers or Discovery budgets (with the exception of the Uranus and Neptune orbiters, but see below), many of them multiple proposals.
  
  Some of those prospects had proposals that would have cost more.
  Let me go down the list. Given that Juno was a largely-inflated New Frontiers budget, anything New Frontiers or cheaper can be expected to be a cheaper mission
  * Titan & Enceceladus - Ocean Worlds (New Frontiers)
  * KBOs - Just did one at a New Frontiers budget, remarkably successful
  * Trojan Asteroid Tour and Rendezvous - (New Frontiers)
  * Psyche - Not even close (Discovery proposal)
  * Venus In-Situ Explorer (among many others, including some at Discovery budgets) - New Frontiers
  * Uranus and Neptune orbiter budgets could actually surpass Juno... but then again, given Juno's price inflation, that's not much difference. Contrarily, there have been proposals to use new Uranus and Neptune flybys en route to studying KBOs on New Horizons budgets, getting a large combined scientific return on a low budget.
  Yes, studying these bodies can be done on budgets well cheaper than Juno, and address far more interesting scientific questions.
  
  Others that proposed to cost less are still in consideration by NASA
  Red herring. Don't pretend that you don't know that due to budget constraints most will get put off indefinitely or outright cancelled, and their proponents will likely spend decades trying proposal after proposal to try to make it happen. If Juno's funds hadn't been spent on Juno, they would have been spent on something else. The money doesn't just disappear if you don't select Juno.
  
  If anything, what killed some of those is the insistence on manned missions to Mars and the need
  
  --
  "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
11. Re:Impressive... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-04 06:13 · Score: 0
  
  So we're going to combine Cluster and Cluster II to try to find something even close in terms of budget, are we? Which together represent a total of 8 separate satellites built in the largest orbital plasma science mission conducted to date, taught us far more about plasma interactions than Juno ever will, and which even with a launch failure (something that was no fault of their own, unlike Juno's nearly 60% budget overrun) was $100m cheaper than Juno.
  They both involve almost identical decision making processes: "Ok, let's spend $700M on studying plasma interaction with magnetosphere." Followed by, "Something unforeseen has prevented from us from using the satellite (launch failure/mothballing due to agency level funding issues), do we scrap the project or do we spend another $300M to continue? Let's continue" And Cluster & MMS is in no way a comprehensive list (there are over a dozen such missions), but just a relevant example that is extremely parallel, and despite the problems worked out enough to improve and repeat. It is kind of silly to expect an Earth based satellite to cost the same as an interplanetary probe, but both NASA and ESA have shown they are willing to spend that much to make it work (besides
  
  taught us far more about plasma interactions than Juno ever will,
  I disagree here, considering there are researchers I know still arguing over limited existing data about Jupiter's magnetosphere, and they're not every astronomers/astrophysicists, and actually work in an applied physics dept. on laboratory plasmas. The large amount of observation of Earth's magnetosphere is complimented by observation of Jupiter's, in the sense that the sum is greater than the sum of the parts.
  And considering what NASA, ESA, and CNSA are spending on similar and future projects, quite a few people disagree on the importance of these types of missions, despite the limited PR and manned mission support they provide.
  
  * Titan & Enceceladus - Ocean Worlds (New Frontiers)
  And such proposals have been struggling in the Discovery and New Frontiers programs because of doubts of getting it to work with the budget and because a flagship mission looks much better, even with funding problems that presents.
  
  * KBOs - Just did one at a New Frontiers budget, remarkably successful
  At a cost of about $800M, with another $100-200M or more needed for the extended mission, so not really cheaper. And there is not only the money budget, but plutonium budget which is why a cheap copy of New Horizons has already been shot down.
12. Re:Impressive... by Rei · 2016-09-04 09:28 · Score: 1
  
  Without the extended mission NH still provided vastly more compelling science than Juno will in its entire mission. Seriously, "better quantifying Jupiter's already fairly quantified plasma environment", or "finding that something that we thought was a dead iceball has its mantle actively convecting on its surface, active photochemistry in its atmosphere, precipitation and glaciation of multiple substance, evidence of possible surface liquids in its past, cryovolcanoes, terrains like the "snakeskin" that we have hardly even begun to understand, mountains the size of the rockies (some smaller ones of which actively drift among the convection cells), significantly reduced atmosphere loss to space than we thought (want to talk plasma interactions?), and perhaps most importantly, that there appears to be more heat inside Pluto than we had previously given it credit for and signs that it may still have a deep liquid water layer (Hammond, Barr and Parmentier, 2016), implying a tremendous liquid water inventory in the Kuiper belt and in the universe in general. How can you even compare that sort of thing to Juno? For 2/3rds the budget. Heck, even what we learned about Charon alone would have been worth the budget.
  And seriously, you're going to argue that Juno, with only 37 orbits, is going to provide more revelations about plasma dynamics in space than a cluster of four better instrumented satellites operating for 15 years that's been the source of nearly 3000 publications? Can you claim that with a straight face?
  The fact that a flagship may provide even better capabilities for Titan and Enceladus does nothing to diminish what is possible with a New Frontiers budget. There is little doubt that we can, on a New Frontiers budget, conduct *at a minimum* an Enceladus plume flyby and analysis. Sampling another world's ocean, an ocean that appears to be heated by serpentinization, and if so not only involves direct water/rock contact but additionally the presence of hydrogen gas. Likewise, there is little doubt that we can get a probe and aeroshell to Titan and a solid suite of scientific instruments. Yes, we could make a larger, more capable, more mobile exploration vehicle on a Flagship budget. But the fact that better options do exist does not change that there are huge unanswered questions about Titan that we could answer on a New Frontiers budget. To pick some random ones: where the heck has the surface and acetylene and ethylene gone? Is the data suggestive that hydrogen is also disappearing near the surface correct? What's the basic chemical composition of any of Titan's seas? How complex does the atmospheric chemistry get? What's up with the unusual shoreline hydrology we're observing, such as disappearing islands? Are theories that the atmosphere is replenished by methane springs in the lake basins correct? Is there young cryovolcanism that could give a sense of what's contained in Titans subsurface seas? No, a New Horizons budget can't answer everything, but it can sure bloody help.
  
  despite the limited PR and manned mission support they provide.
  "Manned mission support"? What on Earth are you talking about? Are you envisioning a manned mission to Enceladus, Titan, or the Kuiper Belt any time soon? Or was that another jab similar to your previous "National Monster Truck administration" one?
  Again, to back up: I'm sorry that I don't find a probe designed to give us better details of a different planet's plasma environment (which we've already had a number of probes taking measurements from - yes, there are gaps in our knowledge, but it's hardly undiscovered ground); multiple instruments studying aurorae (seriously? Of all of the things to dedicate the mass budget to...); and getting a deeper temperature / mass distribution profile of a planet that has zero possibility for life, near-zero possibility for interesting chemistry (at least at depths we'll ever be able to sample), and whose actual int
  
  --
  "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
13. Re:Impressive... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-04 10:10 · Score: 0
  
  ** New Frontiers budget
14. Re: Impressive... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-04 13:54 · Score: 0
  
  Galileo gave you the wonderful images you're thinking of. Voyager's images weren't nearly as good.
15. Re:Impressive... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-04 17:42 · Score: 0
  
  And seriously, you're going to argue that Juno, with only 37 orbits, is going to provide more revelations about plasma dynamics in space than a cluster of four better instrumented satellites operating for 15 years that's been the source of nearly 3000 publications? Can you claim that with a straight face?
  You need to read what was posted again:
  
  The large amount of observation of Earth's magnetosphere is complimented by observation of Jupiter's, in the sense that the sum is greater than the sum of the parts.
  Cluster answered many important questions, but brought up new ones and left others unanswered. Some of those could only be answered by going much further than Earth's magnetosphere, and that data can make the analysis and conclusions from Cluster all the more better. The result is a comparable impact, not just to new results themselves, but interpretation of old results. There is a lot that can be said for trying to open completely new research subjects, but there are also times to balance that with doing things in depth that take advantage of past projects. This could almost be interpreted as a sunk cost, and for better or worse, sunk costs figure heavily into how science and spacing funding is done.
  
  The fact that a flagship may provide even better capabilities for Titan and Enceladus does nothing to diminish what is possible with a New Frontiers budget.
  There is the is problem when you half-ass a mission and people complain about, "Why didn't you just use attach an XYZ to it, and get a huge marginal science to marginal cost gain." It is sort of like the complaints here about the lack of a better camera that wouldn't have added that much more science to the mission, but when made by scientists actually involved in the decision processes, there is an actual problem. When trying to maximize science for a given budget, there are important targets where something resembling a maximization is only really achieved with a go big or go home attitude. And there you're going to have a hard time arguing using half the budget to achieve much less than half the science.
  
  "Manned mission support"? What on Earth are you talking about? Are you envisioning a manned mission to Enceladus, Titan, or the Kuiper Belt any time soon?
  Space agencies have a huge bias towards spending money that can support manned space programs for a variety of reasons. Projects like Cluster and Juno have very little support of that (although more than others due to the improvement of understanding of space weather ). These projects also tend to be less PR friendly, which also counts against them when it comes to some of the high level funding discussion. The importance as viewed by the agencies and scientists is enough to overcome the "limited PR and manned mission support" that counts against such projects.
  
  Because I have different priorities than you for study targets?
  No, and you seem to keep missing that to the point that I question your comprehension enough to continue this argument beyond this point. There is a huge difference between having differing priorities vs. trying to insist a project has minimal science value to the point better images would have been consoling. It is one thing to act like, "Well, you think A is worth 1.1 and B is worth 0.9, but I think A is worth only 0.8 and B is worth 1.2", but a whole different attitude to espouse, "But A is only worth 0.1 or less, how is it not obviously inferior to just about any of the other serious alternatives we have?" Especially so when it seems you had limited to no knowledge of what the project was even about, and don't actually talk about it until this post some time later.
  Science funding decisions are very difficult, and many worthy projects never get funding or get cut before paying off. I have my share of decisions I disagree with (mostly at the Congress line-item level...) and I'v
16. Re: Impressive... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-04 19:38 · Score: 0
  
  Looks more like both are trying to grind an ax... probably the same ax. Or if you need a horse analogy, both are playing polo, insisting each is actually playing chess while their opponent is the only playing polo. How else would you explain so many strawmen created by purposely ignoring some pretty big qualifiers, turning mild, relative statements into strong absolutes?
17. Re:Impressive... by Rei · 2016-09-04 23:04 · Score: 1
  
  The large amount of observation of Earth's magnetosphere is complimented by observation of Jupiter's, in the sense that the sum is greater than the sum of the parts.
  Cluster answered many important questions, but brought up new ones and left others unanswered. Some of those could only be answered by going much further than Earth's magnetosphere, and that data can make the analysis and conclusions from Cluster all the more better
  Yeah, just go ahead and drop me a line when we get another 3000 papers out of Juno.
  
  There is the is problem when you half-ass a mission and people complain about, "Why didn't you just use attach an XYZ to it, and get a huge marginal science to marginal cost gain." It is sort of like the complaints here about the lack of a better camera that wouldn't have added that much more science to the mission, but when made by scientists actually involved in the decision processes, there is an actual problem. When trying to maximize science for a given budget, there are important targets where something resembling a maximization is only really achieved with a go big or go home attitude.
  All missions have to make tradeoffs. New Horizons is a great example. They couldn't even include a magnetometer on it, that's how constrained they were. The amount of data they could have gathered could have been vastly expanded with a few hundred million more in budget. Does that do anything to change the immensity of the discoveries they were able to make on the budget that they were with?
  I'll repeat: the fact that you can get even better value out of a mission by giving it even more money does nothing to change how much value you could get out of it at a given budget figure. If Mission X is already a significantly better buy than Mission Y, and you can make Mission X even better by increasing its budget, that doesn't change the fact that Mission Y is a poor use of money.
  
  Space agencies have a huge bias towards spending money that can support manned space programs for a variety of reasons.
  Except that we're not talking about, as alternative to Juno, anything at all having to do with manned space missions. Your attempt to ascribe my arguments as being somehow equivalent to a bias toward manned space programs hence comes across as yet another attempt by you to label me as just some moron who wants a "National Monster Truck Administration".
  
  Especially so when it seems you had limited to no knowledge of what the project was even about, and don't actually talk about it until this post some time later.
  I'm sorry, I didn't realize that I was supposed to open this conversation by writing a book on Juno to prove my worth to you. My humble apologies.
  
  There is a huge difference between having differing priorities vs. trying to insist a project has minimal science value to the point better images would have been consoling.
  Again: wake me up when Juno is the source of ~3000 publications on plasma dynamics. Yes, I do think that Juno was a big waste of money. So freaking sue me.
  And don't act like you've never been, or at least will be, in this situation, since I know how you feel (like me) about manned exploration. Because manned space exploration has its backers, including in the scientific community. Don't tell me that you don't look at the vast sums spent on manned space exploration compared to their minimal (per dollar) returns on science and find that situation extremely frustrating. Now, tell me, how would you feel if you were talking with a backer of manned space exploration and they treated you like a moron because you didn't see the same value in the manned space program as they did? Because that's precisely what you're doing with me concerning Juno.
  
  --
  "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
18. Re:Impressive... by Rei · 2016-09-04 23:36 · Score: 1
  
  I'll add, concerning manned exploration:
  Don't get me wrong, I do support the eventual expansion of the human species into space. I think it's an important goal to have on the horizon. What I don't support is the concept that it must be done "soon", at the sort of prices that today's missions cost. And I strongly oppose attempts to justify the cost with "science". ISS, for example, at $150B is the most expensive structure ever made. Yes, it absolutely has returned useful data. But $150B worth of data? I'd like to see someone argue that with a straight face.
  The same applies with asteroid missions, Lunar missions, Mars missions, and yes, even my personal topic of interest, Venus. I support the eventual Landis-style colonization of Venus. But I don't support HAVOC. Namely because in the first several stages of HAVOC, humans are basically just an extremely expensive cargo. Yes, I know they would argue that having humans along can increase the scientific output, that they can repair things, all of the standard arguments that manned spaceflight promote. That's all well and good, but not when you're talking about needing to pay for SLS launches and engineer massive, failure-cannot-be-an-option structures to do so. And I find trying to cloak that in the guise of science to be facetious.
  I prefer the concept of keeping the idea of eventual manned settlement on the horizon while keeping the focus on science. This means advancing the state of the art at the same time as exploring.
  For example, concerning Venus I would like to see a probe use a ballute entry system rather than an aeroshell. Ballutes have high TRL as an in-atmospheric deceleration system but low TRL for entry. But the benefits of significantly reduced mass and gentler deceleration promised by ballutes is very significant - not only for Venus, but for all bodies with an atmosphere. Hence, if a probe can simultaneously conduct its mission and advance the state of the art for future missions, it's doing double duty - and I find that to be worth taking on some risk.
  Likewise, with the ISS: it's now a massive sunk cost; we're not getting that money back. If we can keep it operating with reduced operating cost, then that might be justifiable. Hence I support, for example, the concept of testing VASIMR on ISS - namely, since a VASIMR reboost system would not only reduce the required frequency of resupply trips, but also increase VASIMR's TRL to make it more usable for outer solar system exploration.
  In short, I support a program of simultaneous exploration and the advancement/testing of technology that makes both exploration - and eventually, manned settlement - more accessible. But until manned missions don't require tens to hundreds of billions of dollars, until they're actually long-term sustainable, I find it to be just bread-and-circuses.
  Just wanted to be clear about that.
  
  --
  "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Not Frist Probe by Tablizer · 2016-09-02 19:32 · Score: 1

Actually, Pioneer 11 did it first in the mid 1970's

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Table-ized A.I.
1. Re:Not Frist Probe by hcs_$reboot · 2016-09-02 19:36 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah, but at the time they knew how to make better pictures.
  
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  Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
2. Re:Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 19:57 · Score: 0
  
  The camera on Juno is a PR afterthought and not part of the main science package.
3. Re:Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 19:59 · Score: 0
  
  *visible light camera.
  It is dark here. I think I can hear a pedant.
4. Re:Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 20:20 · Score: 1
  
  If these fucking morons at NASA would put higher quality cameras on their probes, maybe they wouldn't have so much trouble getting funding. The public wants to see pretty photos. Boring graphs of magnetometer readings may be good science, but it doesn't grab anyone's imagination.
5. Re: Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 21:30 · Score: 1
  
  So fuck you, you useless piece of shit.
  You see that? That kind of disrespect towards the TAXPAYERS is the reason NASA's funding keeps getting cut. Keep it up ivory tower eggheads. In a few years you won't have two nickels to rub together.
6. Re: Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 22:03 · Score: 0
  
  Looks like I've got my next band name and song title.
7. Re: Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 23:22 · Score: 0
  
  Funding should be cut. There are far more pressing matters here on earth.
8. Re: Not Frist Probe by Tablizer · 2016-09-03 04:02 · Score: 1
  
  Such images are much more useful if combined with multiple instrument types to know the context. For example, image a spot that you also can beam radar off of, and image in multiple wavelengths to see different layers and estimate chemical composition (spectrography).
  But of course all that requires a bigger payload, especially when sufficiently padded against Jupiter's unforgiving radiation.
  Imaging of clouds is also more useful if one can take time-lapse images. But Juno's orbit is not well-suited for that.
  
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  Table-ized A.I.
9. Re:Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 04:12 · Score: 0
  
  There is greatly diminishing returns for photos quality of such things, especially things people have seen before. A higher quality camera would maybe mean people just spending 2.5 seconds glancing at it in their Facebook feed instead of 2 seconds. Even with 100x the resolution, the vast majority of people would think, "Oh neat, pictures of clouds in space" and move on with their lives... which is pretty similar to how they react to these pictures (actually... complaining about the quality is making people pay more attention to them than if they simply had better photos). Not every project is going to generate an impactful image like the Pale Blue Dot, and even then the resolution of the camera wasn't critical, and still the vast majority of people will gloss over it. What can capture some people's interests is an interesting article with some, even if mediocre, pictures. That is more up to the person who writes the headlines and the article, than how many more millions of dollars we spend on sticking a better camera on every science project whether it needs it or not.
10. Re: Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 05:02 · Score: 0
  
  You are about to be eaten by a grue.
11. Re: Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-04 13:56 · Score: 0
  
  You pay more for potato chips than you do for NASA, you idiot.
12. Re: Not Frist Probe by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-04 19:45 · Score: 0
  
  image in multiple wavelengths to see different layers and estimate chemical composition (spectrography).
  Juno does have imaging ability in multiple wavelengths, including multiple wavelengths of IR and UV. Didn't seem like visual wavelengths were too important the goals of those instruments though.
Any of our solar system's gas giants? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 20:53 · Score: 0

The images show storm systems and weather activity unlike anything previously seen on any of our solar system's gas-giant planets," writes Tony Greicius via NASA.
Uh, it's not like we have a wagonload of them. There are two. So the weather on Jupiter may be different from that on Saturn. Except that we haven't actually checked yet.
Sensational.
1. Re:Any of our solar system's gas giants? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 21:01 · Score: 0
  
  You are forgetting Trump.
2. Re:Any of our solar system's gas giants? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-02 22:44 · Score: 0
  
  The explanation is in the article:
  
  “Saturn has a hexagon at the north pole, there is nothing on Jupiter that anywhere near resembles that. The largest planet in our solar system is truly unique."
  So basically they consider a hexagon as boring shit, and they got all excited because Jupiter *doesn't* have one. The mission team must be incredibly biased in favor of their "baby" if they see things that way.
3. Re:Any of our solar system's gas giants? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 04:17 · Score: 0
  
  Considering wave like structures near the poles is not surprising, and even observed on Earth... seeing a system where they don't pop up as strongly is pretty important to understanding what conditions affect the magnitude of such phenomena. Usually it is a lot more helpful to have examples of similar objects with and without what you are studying for comparison.
What it means by parodyca · 2016-09-02 22:41 · Score: 0

If you you convert it to frequencies in the audible range, demodulate it at 2400 baud, covert the data to ascii, then ROT13 decode it, it will read "Make America Great Again". Just ask Donald Trump. He told me.
typo by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 00:21 · Score: 0

Slashdot summary

The pictures and data were collected Aug. 27, when June made the first of some three dozen scheduled close encounters with Jupiter.
From http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/02/492406705/nasa-probe-takes-first-ever-images-of-jupiters-north-pole

The pictures and data were collected Aug. 27, when Juno made the first of some three dozen scheduled close encounters with Jupiter.
What's going on? Is someone manually typing it, or is someone intentionally introducing typos?
Typo? by CmdrTamale · 2016-09-03 00:42 · Score: 1

when June made the first of

The probe is named "Juno", as in Mrs Jove. You know, Jupiter's first wife.
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Do you know that sound? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 01:44 · Score: 0

Those are the shrieking eels...
To all those wanting pretty pictures. by wjcofkc · 2016-09-03 02:52 · Score: 5, Interesting

I too have been hoping for stunning and terrifying up close images of Jupiter, however it comes as no surprise that they are not so incredible. They sent the probe into the harshest space environment in the solar system: the fierce radiation at the north pole of Jupiter. They sent the probe to do hard science, not send back inspiring photos - although we have eighteen months of mission left so we will see. A large part of the mission follows the mantra, "Get in and get the hell out". Which is to say before they lose the probe to radiation. The entirety of the mission is 18 months, so we will have to wait and see what follows.

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Re:OR by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-03 13:13 · Score: 0

Haha. We found a flat-earther y'all! But turning back to the adult's table... the JunoCam (that is the visual light component) is set to go offline on Jan 11, 2017 due to radiation. It can survive about 8 orbits of Jupiter before it dies.
Re: Hyperspace Gateway by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-04 14:00 · Score: 0

That's Saturn, idiot.
Whiners: You know what? Fuck you. by metaforest · 2016-09-04 17:51 · Score: 1

TL;DR: Shut up about the fucking camera. That is not why Juno is there, and it is the best camera we know how to build for that environment.
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Juno is not there to fill your porn cache with superficial visible light dick pics Jupiter.
Juno is orbiting in the second most actively destructive (for a probe) orbital environment in this solar system. The only one worse is the coronal atmosphere of Sol.... and there is nothing we know how to build that would survive there for long enough to justify the attempt. It will be amazing if Juno lasts long enough to finish its primary mission. The hard radiation environment around Jupiter is ripping that probe apart atom by atom and it corrupts the signal quality in every system on Juno at insane levels... Juno is built as a $1.2B gold brick because it has to be.
Why don't you get pretty pictures? Because that is not why Juno is there. It is there to probe Jupiter with RADAR, and measure its gravitational field, and record the EMF environment. If you knew a god-damn thing about image sensors you'd know that trying to get the camera to work at all in an environment that has so much hard radiation in it, is a huge compromise. Imagine trying to use a normal, commercial image sensor in a camera that has a housing made of material that leaks light. It leaks so much fucking light that the exposure has more input from this leakage, than light from the subject that the lens system is focused on! That is what a hard radiation environment does to a camera system that cannot for, mass reasons be properly shielded to keep the noise floor sane.
At first I was a little underwhelmed by the pictures too. But then I saw some info about what that image sensor has to deal with to get any meaningful output. It is a miracle of just enough shielding and some really good signal processing that the images we got back don't look like over-exposed dental x-rays of the of the camera housing. So, yeah, the pictures are going to lack dynamic range and resolution. As others have pointed out the only reason it has a camera is because of you whiney fools. Well you got your insanely expensive camera that can take pictures in the second hardest natural radiation environment in the solar system... Now, you shut up at the kids table and enjoy your mediocre pictures. Maybe some nerd at JPL will figure out how to pull some insane Instagram shit to make them pop later.
Meanwhile, at the adult table, we await the output and learned interpretation, from the more interesting instruments on Juno.