After traveling for five years and nearly 1.8 billion miles, NASA’s Juno spacecraft will announce its arrival at Jupiter with the simplest of radio signals: a three-second beep.
NASA expects the beep, marking the end of a 35-minute engine burn to slow the spacecraft down and allow it to be captured by Jupiter’s gravity, to arrive at Earth at 11:53 p.m. Eastern time next Monday.
“I can tell you when that completes, you’re going to see a lot of celebration,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno’s project manager, “because that means we’ll be in orbit around Jupiter, and that’ll be really cool.”
Juno’s mission is to explore the enigmas beneath the cloud tops of Jupiter. How far down does the Big Red Spot storm that has swirled for centuries extend? What is inside the solar system’s largest planet?
