Jupiter, the third brightest object in our night sky.

This distant point of light has beckoned humanity for millennia in our quest for knowledge and our place in the universe.

Our fascination with the largest planet in the solar system has continued from antiquity

and into the renaissance when, for the first time, humans looked up through a telescope.

In 1610, using a telescope only one and a half inches in diameter, Galileo Galilei observed

through this tiny telescope wonders that would fundamentally change our views of the universe forever.

Visible in this small telescope, and magnified about 20 times, tiny worlds were seen circling

around this giant planet. What became known as the Galilean satellites, Io, Europa, Ganymede,

Callisto, their existence provided a powerful argument that Earth may not be the center

of the Universe, instead, the Earth may actually circle the Sun.

Much, much later, when humans started venturing into space, we sent missions to study the

solar system’s colossus. First there was the arrival of Pioneer 10 in 1973, followed

a year later by Pioneer 11; Voyagers I and II visited the planet in 1979; Ulysses studied

Jupiter’s magnetosphere in 1992 and again in 2000; the Galileo spacecraft studied the

planet in intricate detail in from 1995 until 2003, and it even launched a probe into the

atmosphere of Jupiter itself; The Cassini probe approached the planet in 2000 and took

very detailed images of its atmosphere; and, most recently, Jupiter was used for the New

Horizons mission to accelerate the probe to Pluto in 2007.

Since that flyby of New Horizon almost a decade ago, we’ve had no orbiters or probes studying

the largest planet in our solar system, until now.

Finally, a new mission is on its final approach to Jupiter.

Built by Lockheed Martin, Juno launched on August 5th 2011 atop an Atlas Five rocket

and will enter into Jupiter’s orbit on July 4th 2016. This mission to Jupiter is a collaboration

of many agencies: flight operations will be controlled from the Flight Control Center

in Pasadena California at NASA JPL; The Goddard Space Flight Center handles the instrumentation

The Universities of Hawaii, California Institute of Technology, the University of Colorado

at Boulder, and the Planetary Science Institute all make up the primary science investigators.

Juno is very large, it is 11 feet tall and 11 feet wide its three large solar panels

have a total surface area of 650 square feet. It is this large for a reason, this is the

first time a spacecraft has been sent beyond the asteroid belt using solar cells as its

primary power supply - made possible by advances in solar cell efficiency.

After its launch and two years hurtling through the solar system Juno returned for a swing

by Earth for a gravity assist. By firing its maneuvering thrusters at its greatest distance

from Earth, this gave the spacecraft an added push as it flew past, using Earth’s gravity

to exponentially increase its speed when it flew by, accelerating Juno to a speed of 87,000

miles per hour - the required velocity to reach Jupiter..

After five years, the spacecraft will finally arrive at its destination on July 4th 2016.

As it enters into Jupiter’s gravitational influence it will begin to speed up to 160,000

mile per hour making Juno the fastest human made object in history. And now it must slow

down or it will be lost in the depths of the solar system.

Its LEROS 1b main engine will ignite at the lowest point in Juno’s pass of Jupiter,

slowing the spacecraft down and allowing it to be captured by Jupiter’s immense gravity.

After two deceleration orbital maneuvers Juno will be in its eccentric 14 day polar orbit.

From this unique orbit, Juno will circle the planet 37 times over 20 months and will allow

the on board instruments to study the atmosphere and interior of Jupiter. It also will protect

Juno from the harmful radiation of the planet. Orbiting up high then ducking low to just

31,000 miles above the cloud tops means the spacecraft spends a short amount of time within

the radiation belts of Jupiter. The main computer and other critical systems are further protected

in a one centimeter thick titanium compartment within the main structure of Juno.

The design of the orbit and the spacecraft are meant to enable the 29 sensors and nine

science instruments to study the planet Jupiter like never before. Juno will look inside the

planet using magnetometers to Earth to measure the magnetic fields of Jupiter and its aurorae,

infrared and Microwave sensors will look deep into the atmosphere to assess the abundance

and distribution of water, and therefore oxygen, and provide insight into Jupiter's origins

as well as the solar system’s formation.

By peering inside Jupiter’s core scientists hope to answer whether or not it has a condensed

Hydrogen center which due to pressure and magnetism behaves like a metal.

By understanding the magnetosphere of the planet and taking measurements of the charged

particles that Jupiter emits and absorbs in giant aurora, we will unlock not only the

mystery of how the planet is structured but also how it sustains the energy to generate

the storms that move throughout its atmosphere, including: the Great Red Spot.

The answer to this grand mystery of our solar neighborhood maybe just around the corner.

Using microwaves and spectroscopy, Juno will look for how much water and thus oxygen Jupiter

the heavy elements collapsed to help form Jupiter and how the rest of its gaseous structure

formed together due to the effects if gravity.

How and when Jupiter formed may hold clues to the process the rest of the solar system

underwent during its formation. Including hints to where Earth’s water came from and

why the inner planets are rocky.

When it’s mission is complete in February 2018, after two years and 37 orbits, Juno

will be ordered to de-orbit and burn up in Jupiter’s outer atmosphere, this precaution

will avoid any possibility of biological contamination of any of Jupiter’s moons, including Europa.

The probe will send back data of the environment of Jupiter until its final breakup.

Right now, Juno hurtles through space towards our largest planet, preparing for it’s arrival

in just a few short months, its science instruments primed to unlock the mysteries of a world

unimagined by Galileo when he first glimpsed its wonder through a telescope a little over

400 years ago.