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NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
- aruggirello 1y agoAren't NASA considering the proposal to rendez-vous with 3I/ATLAS (aka C/2025 N1 ATLAS)??? [1] 1: https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-probe-could-intercept-interstellar-comet-scientists-say https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-probe-could-intercept-inte...
- jfengel 1y agoNobody at NASA takes anything Avi Loeb says seriously. It also happens that NASA is too busy doing damage control to consider anything new. But even if they were, it won't be because Loeb suggested it.
- alsobrsp 1y agoI have seen him speak several times. Does anyone take him seriously?
- lucb1e 1y agoIn case anyone else is wondering, it's this guy: "Since 2017, Loeb has argued that alien space craft may be in the Solar System [like] ʻOumuamua" What I don't understand on his Wikipedia page is this bit in the second sentence: "Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University". Does he work there under the alias "Frank B. Baird Jr." or what does this sentence mean? Or is the position called one person but another person fulfills the role?
- kfichter 1y agoUsually just means the position is sponsored by a donor (in this case Frank B. Baird Jr.). Salary and sometimes other funding gets paid via endowment set up by the named person or someone else on behalf of the named person.
- GolfPopper 1y agoWhile I am not familiar with this particular instance, universities will often have a permanent professorship, or chair, with a specific focus that is named either after a renown expert in the field who taught at that institution, or after the person or organization who funded (endowed) the establishment of that position. As for Loeb himself, I'm only passingly familiar with him in passing because of coverage since ‘Oumuamua, but it seems like he is a fairly typical asgtrophysicist who decided for some reason that he would launch a crusade declaring anything entering the Solar System from interstellar space must be an alien probe or spaceship.
- JdeBP 1y agoFrank B. Baird Jr. was the son of Frank B. Baird, of Buffalo New York, who died some time around 1947. His son, and Flora M. Baird, his widow, set up a charitable trust in his name which did things like donate to the Buffalo Museum of Science. The later Frank B. Baird Jr. Foundation made several donations to Harvard for scholarships and the like in the 1950s.
- ricksunny 1y ago>Nobody at NASA takes anything Avi Loeb says seriously. source > bloviating >But even if they were, it won't be because Loeb suggested it. Wow, what an utter arbitrarily position-hedging comment
- Tuna-Fish 1y agoNo, they are not, because the probe doesn't have anywhere near enough fuel to do this. I suggest stopping use of any news source you have that would print this crap.
- perihelions 1y agoYou can read their paper here[0]. I agree it's very dodgy (and without even looking at that author's past). While the comet 3I/ATLAS approaches within 53 million km of Jupiter (0.3 au), all they can propose is, optimistically, to bring Juno to within half that distance–27 million km. Hardly seems worth the risks? And that'd end all of Juno's remaining Jupiter science (assuming the MAGA! FY26 budget doesn't get to it first. It's fully defunded, if anyone hadn't heard). Referring to their figs. 3–7, that distance figure is a hard limit—there's no possibility they have of getting closer to the comet than that. (Keep in mind this is just one random interstellar comet; there are many, many others like it—there will be infinite opportunities to study one—and Avi Loeb is a proven clown who consistently misrepresents these things for drama). [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21402 https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21402 ("Intercepting 3I/ATLAS at Closest Approach to Jupiter with the Juno spacecraft") Tangential remark: there was a similar proposal for the end-of-life of the Cassini orbiter—it didn't happen, but, there was enough delta-v for the theoretical option, of escaping Saturn and redirecting it to a second mission at Uranus[1]. It was also a dodgy idea, since the transfer time would have been ridiculous (~20 years)—it'd have been a long-shot for Cassini to have survived that long. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini_retirement#End_of_mission_options https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini_retirement#End_of_miss... ("Cassini retirement#End of mission options")
- btown 1y ago> without even looking at that author's past It is worth noting that this comes two weeks after the authors posted https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12213 https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12213 "Is the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Alien Technology?" They describe this first paper as "largely a pedagogical exercise" - clearly, if they're now providing emails to news outlets recommending this course change, their view of the target audience has certainly evolved. Orson Welles would be proud.
- efitz 1y agohttps://archive.ph/pwVDL https://archive.ph/pwVDL
- huijzer 1y agoEver since I've seen the Apollo 11 press conference, I don't know what to think: https://youtu.be/BI_ZehPOMwI https://youtu.be/BI_ZehPOMwI
- hhh 1y agowhy? it’s a press conference of the people with the most eyes on them in the world, not a celebration
- unkeen 1y ago> the solar system’s undisputed heavyweight Now I feel the urge to dispute this!
- 867-5309 1y agodon't be so hard on yourself, there are plenty of low-calorie alternatives nowadays
- mritterhoff 1y agoIt's an odd choice of words since 1. Most people know it's the largest and heaviest planet 2. They didn't specify planet but are still ignoring the sun, which is 1000x Jupiter's mass.
- t1E9mE7JTRjf 1y agoInteresting, for me it was quite poetic and a phrasing I specifically noticed and enjoyed. I guess I did know Jupiters the biggest, but wouldn't have been 100% on it, or on heaviest. Not that I'd have a better suggestion, just not something much in my mind, so the framing was nice. I didn't think of the sun at all for some reason. Guess my solar system association is with planets.
- lentil_soup 1y agoThese are the pictures from the camera, incredibly beautiful stuff https://science.nasa.gov/gallery/junocam-images/ https://science.nasa.gov/gallery/junocam-images/
- t1E9mE7JTRjf 1y agoWow, they're indeed incredible. What sights. Thanks for sharing that follow up.
- roughly 1y agoThis is a fantastic recap of everything Juno discovered and the value of this kind of mission - there’s multiple discoveries in here that are at odds with our theoretical understanding of planetary formation, physics, and chemistry that can inform new science moving forward. One that stuck out to me in particular was that Jupiter’s massive magnetic field isn’t generated by a metallic core like we expected, but rather Hydrogen under pressures sufficient to tear free electrons. Combine that with the fact that the Juno probe has now more than doubled its expected life, and this whole mission serves as as good of an argument for continuing to fund NASA as you’re going to see.
- euroderf 1y agoOT: So if Jupiter is something of a "failed star", how much bigger would it have to be to be a successful star, and what would be the effect (if any) on other planets' orbits, and would it boil away a lot of Saturn ?
- mritterhoff 1y agoWikipedia says it would need to be 75x more massive in order to start fusing hydrogen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter#Size_and_mass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter#Size_and_mass
- euroderf 1y agoI wonder then how this idea of "failed star" got um started.
- ygritte 1y agoI do hope that Juno gets another extension. It's obviously worth it. Its mission is an impressive demonstration that no sooner do we take a closer look at something than we realize we knew nothing and don't understand what we find.