Jupiter

2016-07-04 (Monday)

Posted on by What did you learn in School today ?

Today, I learned that:

If you are in the US, then you can enjoy an extra day off work and celebrate the nation’s independence day, congratulations!

And thanks to the internet you can also listen to a Swedish radio programme, where Gloria Ray Karlmark counts her life story, including fighting for racial emancipation in Little Rock, Arkansas, and being the first coloured female student at MIT. But you need to know Swedish, and if you do, the link can be found in reference #1 below.

And when it is time for the fireworks tonight, think about what is happening at that very moment even further out in the sky, on a distance 48 light-minutes away. A Nasa probe named Juno penetrates the Jupiter atmosphere, searching for clues to the composition of this gigantic planet, the biggest one in our solar system. For more information, see reference #2 below.

But do you know why the probe is called Juno? It all started back in ancient Rome. Their god of gods was Jupiter, married to Juno. But Jupiter also had women on the side, the four most prominent being Io, Europa, Ganimedes and Calisto. In order to hide his extra-marital affairs from his wife, Jupiter surrounded himself by a cloud. But the jealous Juno had a sight which could penetrate that cloud. So now, Juno will once again penetrate the clouds of Jupiter and report her findings to Mother Earth.

In the meantime, I suggest you appreciate the following image. Further information can be found in reference #3 below.

jupiter-aurora

An image showing what the Hubble telescope found when directing UV rays towards Jupiter. It shows a permanent aurora, a result of the combination of solar winds and charged particles from the planet’s biggest moon, Io. Image by NASA, ESA, and J. Nichols (University of Leicester)

… That’s what I learned in school !

Refs.:

1: Gloria Ray Karlmark

2: Juno by NASA

3: Hubble photographs Jupiter’s dramatic auroras

+: What did you learn in school today ?

2016-01-22 (Friday)

Posted on by What did you learn in School today ?

Today, I learned that:

Space lovers are having a week that is nothing else but fabulous. We already saw the first flower grown in zero gravity. And now, going from plant to planet, here comes other equally exciting news.

Astronomers at California Institute of Technology suggest that our solar system has a ninth planet. By measuring dwarf plants in the Kuiper Belt, farther away from us than Pluto, they suggest that their irregular movements may be due to influence by another, still unknown planet, that they call Planet Nine. If that is true, this planet is 5 to 10 times bigger than Earth and has an orbit around the Sun that takes 10.000 to 20.000 years to complete.

This reminds me of how Pluto was once discovered. In the 1840s, Urban Le Verrier predicted the position of Neptune by how Uranus had its orbit disturbed by another celestial object, and once Neptune had been discovered, there was a similar discussion about yet another planet, beyond Neptune. In 1909, Percival Lowell and William H. Pickering suggested the position of such a Planet X, until finally Pluto was confirmed by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930.

And speaking about planets, the coming two weeks will give us a festival of planets, when all five planets March, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn will be aligned in the early morning sky and visible with naked eye! The reference below gives more details about that, and thanks also to Cecilia for the hint!

… That’s what I learned in school!

Refs.:

1: Astronomers may have found the Solar System’s 9th planet

2: Evidence for a distant giant planet in the solar system

3: Pluto

4: See all five naked-eye planets gathered in the morning sky

+: What did you learn in school today ?