In 1983, Pioneer 10, an
American space probe, crossed the orbit of Pluto, the outermost planet, to
continue its voyage into the universe beyond our solar system. This space
exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in
California, and the space probe was manufactured by TRW Inc.
Pioneer 10 was launched on
March 2, 1972, by an Atlas-Centaur expendable vehicle from Cape Canaveral,
Florida. Between July 15, 1972, and February 15, 1973, it became the first
spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt. Photography of Jupiter began on November
6, 1973, at a range of 25,000,000 kilometres (16,000,000 mi), and a total of
about 500 images were transmitted. The closest approach to the planet was on
December 4, 1973, at a range of 132,252 kilometres (82,178 mi). During the
mission, the on-board instruments were used to study the asteroid belt, the
environment around Jupiter, the solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far
reaches of the Solar System and heliosphere.
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| Artist's impression of Pioneer 10's flyby of Jupiter, by Rick Guidice [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
So, what do we know about
Jupiter?
Jupiter is the fifth planet
from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with a
mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, but two and a half times that of all the
other planets in the Solar System combined. Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants;
the other two giant planets, Uranus and Neptune are ice giants. Jupiter has
been known to astronomers since antiquity. The Romans named it after their
god Jupiter. When viewed from Earth, Jupiter can reach an apparent
magnitude of −2.94, bright enough for its reflected light to cast shadows, and making it on average the third-brightest object in the night sky after the
Moon and Venus.
Jupiter is primarily composed
of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium, though helium comprises
only about a tenth of the number of molecules. It may also have a rocky core of
heavier elements, but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a
well-defined solid surface. Because of its rapid rotation, the planet's shape
is that of an oblate spheroid (it has a slight but noticeable bulge around the
equator). The outer atmosphere is visibly segregated into several bands at
different latitudes, resulting in turbulence and storms along their interacting
boundaries. A prominent result is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that is
known to have existed since at least the 17th century when it was first seen by
telescope. Surrounding Jupiter is a faint planetary ring system and a powerful
magnetosphere. Jupiter has at least 67 moons, including the four large Galilean
moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these,
has a diameter greater than that of the planet Mercury.
Radio communications were lost
with Pioneer 10 on January 23, 2003, because of the loss of electric power for
its radio transmitter, with the probe at a distance of 12 billion kilometers
(80 AU) from Earth.
Jupiter has been explored on
several other occasions by robotic spacecraft, such as the Voyager flyby
missions and later, the Galileo orbiter. In late February 2007, Jupiter was
visited by the New Horizons probe, which used Jupiter's gravity to increase its
speed and bend its trajectory en route to Pluto. The latest probe to visit the
planet is Juno, which entered into orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Future
targets for exploration in the Jupiter system include the probable ice-covered
liquid ocean of its moon Europa.
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