Nasa Probe Arrives In Jupiter Orbit

​The US space agency has successfully put a new probe in orbit around Jupiter .

The Juno satellite , which left Earth five years ago , had to fire a rocket engine to slow its approach to the planet and get caught by its gravity .

A sequence of tones transmitted from the spacecraft confirmed the braking manoeuvre had gone as planned .

Receipt of the radio messages prompted wild cheering at Nasa ’ s mission control in Pasadena, California .

“ All stations on Juno co – ord , we have the tone for burn cut- off on Delta B ,” Juno Mission Control had announced . “ Roger Juno , welcome to Jupiter . ”

Scientists plan to use the spacecraft to sense the planet’ s deep interior . They think the structure and the chemistry of its insides hold clues to how this giant world formed some four – and – a -half- billion years ago .

Engineers had warned in advance that the engine firing was fraught with danger .

No previous spacecraft has dared pass so close to Jupiter ; its intense radiation belts can destroy unprotected electronics , reports the BBC .

One calculation even suggested the orbit insertion would have subjected Juno to a dose equivalent to a million dental X – rays.

But the probe is built like a tank with titanium shielding, and the 35 – minute rocket burn appeared to go without a hitch.

While the radiation dangers have not gone away , the probe should now be able to prepare its instruments to start sensing what lies beneath Jupiter ’s opaque clouds .

Tuesday ’ s orbit insertion has put Juno in a large ellipse around the planet that takes just over 53 days to complete .

A second burn of the rocket engine in mid – October will tighten this orbit to just 14 days . It is then that the science can really start .

This will involve repeat passes just a few thousand kilometres above the cloud tops .

At each close approach , Juno will use its eight remote sensing instruments – plus its camera – to peer down through the gas planet ’ s many layers, to measure their composition , temperature, motion and other properties .

A priority will be to determine the abundance of oxygen at Jupiter . This will be bound up in its water .

“ How much water Jupiter has tells us a lot about where the planet formed early in the Solar System, ” explained team – member Candy Hansen .

“ We think that Jupiter may not have formed where it is today, and if it formed further away or closer in – that tells us a lot about how the Solar System in general formed . Because when we look at planets around other stars we see quite a menagerie of possibilities .”

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