Voyage to Jupiter. INSTITUTION National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 312 131 SE 050 900 AUTHOR Morrison, David; Samz, Jane TITLE Voyage to Jupiter. INSTITUTION National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC. Scientific and Technical Information Branch. REPORT NO NASA-SP-439 PUB DATE 80 NOTE 208p.; Colored photographs and drawings may not reproduce well. AVAILABLE FROMSuperintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 ($9.00). PUB TYPE Reports - Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC09 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Aerospace Technology; *Astronomy; Satellites (Aerospace); Science Materials; *Science Programs; *Scientific Research; Scientists; *Space Exploration; *Space Sciences IDENTIFIERS *Jupiter; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; *Voyager Mission ABSTRACT This publication illustrates the features of Jupiter and its family of satellites pictured by the Pioneer and the Voyager missions. Chapters included are:(1) "The Jovian System" (describing the history of astronomy);(2) "Pioneers to Jupiter" (outlining the Pioneer Mission); (3) "The Voyager Mission"; (4) "Science and Scientsts" (listing 11 science investigations and the scientists in the Voyager Mission);.(5) "The Voyage to Jupiter--Cetting There" (describing the launch and encounter phase);(6) 'The First Encounter" (showing pictures of Io and Callisto); (7) "The Second Encounter: More Surprises from the 'Land' of the Giant" (including pictures of Ganymede and Europa); (8) "Jupiter--King of the Planets" (describing the weather, magnetosphere, and rings of Jupiter); (9) "Four New Worlds" (discussing the nature of the four satellites); and (10) "Return to Jupiter" (providing future plans for Jupiter exploration). Pictorial maps of the Galilean satellites, a list of Voyager science teams, and a list of the Voyager management team are appended. Eight technical and 12 non-technical references are provided as additional readings. (YP) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * tI-Zbein......../ii . U $ DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Moo of Educational Research and improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) tThis document has been reproduced as eceived from the person or organization originating it o Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality Points ol view or opinions stated in this docu- ment do not necessarily represent official OERI positron or policy 2 ilr------ - a piillh4.01.... f 1.1 --4-nom 4' - . stateaksaa...;,,,, geo .4" I r ' A. NASA SP-439 II 111/M11411=1/11111 David Morrison and Jane Samz Scientific and Technical Information Branch 1980 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Washington, DC For sale by the Superintendent of Documents U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington. D.0 20402 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 80-600126 6 FOREWORD Few missions of planetary exploration have provided such rewards of insight and surprise as the Voyager flybys of Jupiter. Those who were fortunate enough to be with the science teams during those weeks will long remember the experience; it was like being in the crow's nest of a ship during landfall and passage through an ar- chipelago of strange islands. We had known that Jupiter would be remarkable, for man had been studying it for centuries, but we were far from prepared for the tor- rent of new information that the Voyagers poured back to Earth. Some of the spirit of excitement and connection is captured in this volume. Its senior author was a member of the Imaging Team. It is not common that a person can both "do science" at the leading edge and also present so vivid an inside picture of a remarkable moment in the history of space exploration. April 30, 1980 Thomas A. Mutch Associate Administrator Office of Space Science r i INTRODUCTION The two Voyager encounters with Jupiter were periods unparalleledin degree and diversity of discovery. We had, of course, expecteda number of discoveries because we had never before been al e to study in detail the atmospheric motionson a planet that is a giant spinning sphere of hydrogen and helium, not hadwe ever observed planet-sized objects such as the Jovian satellites Ganymede andCallisto, which are half water-ice. We had never beenso close to a Moon-sized satellite such aslo,which was Isnowntobe dispersing sodium throughoutitsJovian neighborhood and was thought to be generating a one-million-ampere electricalcur- rent that in some way results in billions of watts of radio emission from Jupiter. The closer Voyager came to Jupiter the more apparent it became that the scien- tific richness of the Jovian system was going to greatly exceedeven our most op- timistic expectations. The growing realizationamong Voyager scientists of the wealth of discovery is apparent in their comments, discussions,and reports as re- counted by the authors in their descriptions of thetwo encounters. Although many of the discoveries occurred in the few weeks aroundeach en- counter, they were, of course, the result of more than those few weeks of effort. In fact, planning started a decade earlier, and the Voyagerteam of engineers and scien- tists had been designing, building, and planning for theencounters for seven years. The Pioneer spacecraft made the first reconnaissance of Jupiter in 1973-1974,pro- viding key scientific results on which Voyager could build, and discoveriesfrom con- tinuing ground-based observations suggested specific Voyager studies.Voyager is itself just the second phase of exploration of the Joviansystem. It will be followed by the Galileo program, which will directly probe Jupiter's atmosphereand provide long-term observations of the Jovian system froman orbiting spacecraft. In the meantime, the Voyager spacecraft will continue their journeyto Saturn, and possibly Uranus and Neptune, planets evenmore remote from Earth and about which we know even less than we knew of Jupiter before 1979. As is clearly illustrated in this recounting of thevoyage to Jupiter, scientific endeavors are human endeavors; just as Galileo couldnot have foreseen the advancement in our knowledge initiated by his discoveries of the four Jovianmoons in 1610, neither can we fully comprehend the scientific heritage thatour exploration of space is providing future generations. April 1980 Eduard C. Stone Voyager Project Scientist vii a ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors are grateful to the many members of the Voyager Project team who not only made this historic mission of exploration possible but also took time from their busy schedules to offer us assistance, information, and encouragement in the preparation of this book. Among many too numerous to name individually, we particularly thank E. C. Stone, A. L. Lane, C. H. Stembridge, R. A. Mills,E. Mon- toya, M. A. Mitz, and B. A. Smith, L. Soderblom, and their colleagues on the Voyager Imaging Team. We are grateful to F. E. Bristow, D. L. Bane, L. J. Pieri and especially J. J. Van der Woude for their assistance in obtaining optimum ver- sions of the photographs printed here. C. B. Filcher and I. de Pater kindly made available their groundbased pictures of the Jovian magnetosphere. Many colleagues have read and provided helpful comments on parts of the manuscript, among them G. A. Briggs, S. A. Collins, S. Cruikshank, J. Doughty, A. L. Guin, A. L. Lane, R. A. Mills, E. Montoya, E. C. Stone, J. L. Ward, and especially C. R. Chapman. ix fi CONTENTS Foreword v Introduction vii Acknowledgment ix Chapter1. The Jovian System 1 Chapter 2. Pioneers to Jupiter 11 Chapter 3. The Voyager Mission 23 Chapter 4. Science and Scientists 33 Chapter 5. The Voyage to JupiterGetting There 47 Chapter 6. The First Encounter 63 Chapter7. The Second Encounter: More Surprises From the "Land" of the Giant 93 Chapter 8. JupiterKing of the Planets 117 Chapter 9. Four New Worlds 139 Chapter 10. Return to Jupiter 169 Appendix A. Pictorial Maps of the Galilean Satellites 177 Appendix B. Voyager Science Teams 195 Appendix C. Voyager Management Team 197 Additional Reading 199 xi ak , k-e Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar systema gaseous world as large as 1300 Earths, marked by alternating bands of colored clouds and a dazzling complexity of storm systems. The Voyager mission gave us our first close look at this spec- tacular planet. 1P-210851 11 CHAPTER 1 THE JOVIAN SYSTEM Introduction from the night sky, more brightly and steadily In the Sun's necklace of planets,one gem than any star. During the late 1970s it wasa far outshines the rest: Jupiter. Larger than all winter object, but in 1980 it will dominate the the otherplanets andsatellites combined, spring skies, becoming a summer "star" about Jupiter is a true giant. If intelligent beings exist 1982. on planets circling nearby stars, it is probable that Jupiter is the only member of our plane- Early Discoveries tary system they can detect. They can see the Even seen through a small telescopeor pair Sun wobble in its motion with a twelve-year of binoculars, Jupiter looks like a real world, period as Jupiter circles it, pulling firstone displaying a faintly banded disk quite unlike the way, then the other with the powerful tug of its tiny, brilliant image of a star. It also reveals the gravity. if astronomers on some distant worlds brightest members of its satellite familyas star- put telescopes in orbit above their atmospheres, like points spread out along a straight lineex- they might even be able to detect the sunlight tended east-west through the planet. Thereare reflected from Jupiter.Butallthe other four of these planet-sized moons; with their planetsincluding tiny inconspicuous Earth orbits seen edge-on from Earth, theyseem to would be hopelessly lost in the glare ofour star, move constantly back and forth, changing their the Sun. configuration hourly. Jupiter is outstanding among planets not In January 1610, in his first attempt to only for its size, but also for its system of orbi:- applythenewlyinventedtelescopeto ing bodies. With fifteen known satellites, and astronomy, Galileo discovered the four large probably several more too small to have been satellites of Jupiter.