{"id":124978,"date":"2021-07-14T20:23:12","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T03:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/nasas-juno-spacecraft-detects-jupiters-highest-energy-ions"},"modified":"2021-07-14T20:23:12","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T03:23:12","slug":"nasas-juno-spacecraft-detects-jupiters-highest-energy-ions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/nasas-juno-spacecraft-detects-jupiters-highest-energy-ions","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Juno spacecraft Detects Jupiter\u2019s Highest-Energy Ions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cdqd3Zo9c9A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Trapped ions discovered at midlatitudes can have energies exceeding 100 megaelectron volts per nucleon. Their detection adds to our understanding of the powerful radiation environment around Jupiter.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jupiter\u2019s planetary radiation environment is the most intense in the solar system. NASA\u2019s Juno spacecraft has been orbiting the planet closer than any previous mission since 2016, investigating its innermost radiation belts from a unique polar orbit. The spacecraft\u2019s orbit has enabled the first complete latitudinal and longitudinal study of Jupiter\u2019s radiation belts. <em>Becker et al.<\/em> leverage this capability to report the discovery of a new population of heavy, high-energy ions trapped at Jupiter\u2019s midlatitudes.<\/p>\n<p>The authors applied a novel technique for detecting this population; rather than using a particle detector or spectrometer to observe and quantify the ions, they used Juno\u2019s star-tracking camera system. Star trackers, or stellar reference units (SRUs), are high-resolution navigational cameras whose primary mission is using observations of the sky to compute the spacecraft\u2019s precise orientation. The SRU on board the Juno spacecraft is among the most heavily shielded components, afforded 6 times more radiation protection than the spacecraft\u2019s other systems in its radiation vault.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trapped ions discovered at midlatitudes can have energies exceeding 100 megaelectron volts per nucleon. Their detection adds to our understanding of the powerful radiation environment around Jupiter. Jupiter\u2019s planetary radiation environment is the most intense in the solar system. NASA\u2019s Juno spacecraft has been orbiting the planet closer than any previous mission since 2016, investigating [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}