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THE PLANETARY REPORT JUNE SOLSTICE 2017 VOLUME 37, NUMBER 2 Planetary.Org THE PLANETARY REPORT JUNE SOLSTICE 2017 VOLUME 37, NUMBER 2 planetary.org SPECTACULAR JUPITER JUNO REVEALS A SURPRISING AND COMPLEX WORLD CHINA’S CHANG’E-5 C A NEW SMOKING GUN? C A PLANETARY DEFENSE PLAN SNEAK PEAK RICHARD CHUTE is The Planetary Society’s chief development officer. Help Us Fuel Up for Launch! Watch As We Get Ready for LightSail 2… We could employ solar sails, vast but very thin films that catch sunlight…plying the void between the worlds. Especially for trips to Mars and beyond, such methods are far better than rockets. — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot THE PLANETARY SOCIETY’S LightSail® 2 get there, we need one more boost from our spacecraft is one step closer to the launch vitally important mission team: the members pad and ready to make space exploration of The Planetary Society. ABOVE LEFT A history! In the two years since our test launch In the coming weeks, we’ll be launching a remote camera placed of LightSail 1, our spacecraft has undergone special member appeal to help us store the Society Planetary Spradling/The Josh illustration: Baraty; Navid Launch photo: near the launch pad an extensive review followed by a series of financial fuel we need to complete the work captured this photo critical upgrades and tests. ahead of us. Watch for our special mailing and of LightSail 1 blasting off on May 20, 2015. Our new and improved LightSail 2 is now the opportunity to make a gift that will help being prepared for delivery to the Air Force us secure our place in history. Soon we’ll be ABOVE RIGHT LightSail 2 Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, New announcing how your gift will stretch farther, will ride to space onboard Mexico, where it will be integrated with its thanks to a generous match from one of our a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. “mother ship,” Prox-1. Once there, we will wait visionary members, someone who is deeply Once released from for confirmation of our final launch date from committed to our efforts to advance space Prox-1, its carrier satellite, LightSail 2 will embark on SpaceX, and prepare for the trip to Kennedy science and exploration. its mission to demonstrate Space Center. But wait! In the early fall, look for an exciting controlled solar sailing With these key steps completed, we are online opportunity for members and donors in Earth orbit. now focusing on final preparations for mission to win a special VIP trip to watch LightSail 2’s operations and the challenges of demonstrat- historic launch from Cape Canaveral! More ing controlled solar sailing in orbit. And to details are coming soon. 2 THE PLANETARY REPORT C JUNE SOLSTICE 2017 CONTENTS JUNE SOLSTICE 2017 Help Us Fuel Up for Launch! Richard Chute gives us a heads-up on getting LightSail 2 2 launched and a special opportunity to watch it happen. FROM THE PLANETARY SOCIETY BLOG Citizen Scientist Spots Changes 6 on Rosetta’s Comet Marco Parigi spotted a tiny change on 67P Churyumov- Garasimenko and helped the science team out. COVER STORY Spectacular Jupiter 8 Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan talks to principal investigator Scott Bolton about Juno’s surprises. FROM THE PLANETARY SOCIETY BLOG A Lunar Sample Return Mission 14 Andrew Jones looks at China’s next lunar mission, Chang’e-5. FROM THE PLANETARY SOCIETY BLOG A Massive Find 17 Did a Planetary Society-funded citizen scientist help find one of Earth’s biggest impact craters? DEVELOPMENTS IN SPACE SCIENCE Defending Our World 20 Bruce Betts outlines the Society’s five steps for preventing asteroid impact, and more. ADVOCATING FOR SPACE Planetary Science Resurgence 23 Casey Dreier reports on a U.S. budget that reaches near-historic heights for NASA’s robotic space exploration program. DEPARTMENTS Launch photo: Navid Baraty; illustration: Josh Spradling/The Planetary Society Planetary Spradling/The Josh illustration: Baraty; Navid Launch photo: 4 Your Place in Space Bill Nye encourages us to think carefully about the future we are creating. 13 Volunteer Spotlight Volunteers engaged the public to stand up for science. 22 What’s Up? Planets and meteor showers… ON THE COVER: The Juno spacecraft is revealing a new Jupiter to us—with roiling north and south polar storms, a “fuzzy” planetary core, a “lumpy” magnetic field, and more. As this magazine goes to press,Juno will fly over the Great Red Spot, surely changing our ideas about this iconic Jovian feature. Jupiter’s unexpectedly storm-congested south pole is highlighted in this JunoCam image captured on May 19, 2017, from a height of 49,900 kilometers (about 29,000 miles). Image: NASA/SWRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran CONTACT US The Planetary Report (ISSN 0736-3680) is published quarterly at the Editor DONNA E. STEVENS The Planetary Society editorial offices of The Planetary Society, 60 South Los Robles Avenue, Art Director LOREN A. ROBERTS for HEARKEN CREATIVE 60 South Los Robles Avenue Pasadena, CA 91101-2016, 626-793-5100. It is available to members Copy Editors AXN ASSOCIATES & KARL STULL Pasadena, CA 91101-2016 of The Planetary Society. Annual dues are $50 (U.S. dollars) for Technical Editor JAMES D. BURKE General Calls: 626-793-5100 members in the United States, as well as in Canada and other countries. Science Editor BRUCE BETTS E-mail: [email protected] Printed in USA. Third-class postage at Pasadena, California, and at an Chief Operating Officer JENNIFER VAUGHN Internet: planetary.org additional mailing office. Canada Post Agreement Number 87424. Director of Communications ERIN GREESON Viewpoints expressed in articles and editorials are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent positions of The Planetary Society, its officers, or its advisers. © 2017 by The Planetary Society. All Rights Reserved. The Planetary Society and The Planetary Report: Registered Trademarks ® The Planetary Society. Planetfest™ The Planetary Society. YOUR PLACE IN SPACE BILL NYE is chief executive officer of The Planetary Society. Thinking Carefully About the Future Sufficient and Steady Investment in Space COFOUNDERS CARL SAGAN RECENTLY, I MADE what I hope is only my first 1934–1996 appearance on The Late Show with Stephen BRUCE MURRAY 1931–2013 Colbert. And what did he want to talk about? LOUIS D. FRIEDMAN LightSail! It was a marvelous moment. I Executive Director Emeritus brought out a model of our spacecraft (created BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chairman of the Board by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Dave Doody, DANIEL T. GERACI Founder & co-CEO Arithmos Financial Innovations a longtime Society member) and spoke briefly President about the big ideas behind solar sailing and our JAMES BELL Professor, School of Earth decades of support for solar sailing missions. and Space Exploration, Arizona State University It meant a great deal to me. I was, after all, Vice President HEIDI HAMMEL following in Carl Sagan’s footsteps. In 1976, Executive Vice President, Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Carl showed a model of JPL’s proposed Comet Chief Executive Officer Halley solar sail to TV talk-show host Johnny BILL NYE Science Educator Carson. That mission never flew, and The Soci- Secretary C. WALLACE HOOSER ety’s first solar sail,Cosmos 1, wound up in Associate Professor of Radiology, University of Texas the sea. But I showed the world a model of a Southwestern Medical School Treasurer solar sail that actually has flown. I shared our LON LEVIN President and CEO mission and our vision with the audience of GEOshare LLC America’s most popular late-night TV show. It along with four or five times that many at the G. SCOTT HUBBARD Professor, Department of was really something for me and, especially, four-hundred-plus “sister” marches around Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University for The Society. the world. That’s a lot of people sharing and JOHN LOGSDON Professor Emeritus, Space Policy Institute, I’m also happy to report that LightSail 2’s expressing the same sentiment: that science, The George Washington University Sagan/Carson video still: Johnny Carson Estate; Nye/Colbert video still: CBS TV video still: Nye/Colbert Estate; Carson Johnny video still: Sagan/Carson ROBERT PICARDO partner spacecraft, Georgia Tech’s Prox-1, has basic research, and many of the scientific Actor shipped safely to the Air Force Research Labo- discoveries made in recent years be valued BRITNEY SCHMIDT Assistant Professor ratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Once and protected by important elected represen- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Georgia Institute of Technology Prox-1 reaches orbit, it will open up and deploy tatives and government officials around the BIJAL “BEE” THAKORE Regional Coordinator for Asia Pacific, LightSail 2 onto its mission to perform con- world. It is in absolutely no one’s best interest Space Generation Advisory Council trolled solar sail flight in Earth orbit. This is when science—and for us at The Planetary FILLMORE WOOD Vice President and Regional Counsel, yet another important milestone in LightSail Society, space science—is undervalued by the BP, retired ADVISORY COUNCIL 2’s exciting journey to launch. powers that be. Investment in basic research, BUZZ ALDRIN ROBERT D. BRAUN especially space science research, leads to DAVID BRIN GARRY E. HUNT THE MARCH FOR SCIENCE innovations. New materials and alloys, new BRUCE JAKOSKY CHARLES E. KOHLHASE JR. Also this spring, I participated in the interna- fabrication techniques, new computer pro- LAURIE LESHIN JON LOMBERG ROSALY LOPES tional March for Science in Washington, D.C. cessors, and new software all keep a country BOB MCDONALD Baraty Navid DONNA L. SHIRLEY I was an honorary cochair and The Planetary competitive on the world stage. Without PETE SLOSBERG KEVIN STUBE Society was a partner. There were at least fifty- innovation, countries and their economies LORNE TROTTIER NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON thousand people out there in the pouring rain fall behind and get out-competed by other 4 THE PLANETARY REPORT C JUNE SOLSTICE 2017 LEFT On April 22, 2017, people around the world joined the March for Science to show their support for all aspects of science, and to urge their governments’ lawmakers to make it a top priority.
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