Towards the continuation of the investigation of Jupiter and its moons

Although most of the time of the Juno spacecraft will be devoted to the investigation of Jupiter, it is likely that from time to time the spacecraft's camera will also be directed towards the moons. These will not be close-ups that allow focusing on certain areas, but a panoramic view 

After a journey of 5 years, another spacecraft is arriving to the planet Jupiter and its name is Juno. The spacecraft was launched from the USA on August 5.8.2011, 4.7.2016 and will reach it on July 618, 1. The spacecraft will enter a polar orbit around it and investigate its chemical composition, its gravity field, its magnetic field, try to learn about the way in which Jupiter was formed, whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water deep in the atmosphere, whether its mass is homogeneously distributed and the winds deep in the atmosphere Capable of reaching a speed of 2 km/h. In the past, the Galileo spacecraft circled it for several years. Other spacecraft are Voyager XNUMX and Voyager XNUMX that passed by as part of a journey to all the gas planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The Cassini spacecraft passed by it with the aim of exploiting its gravity on its way to Saturn and the New Horizons spacecraft which also exploited its gravity to reach the dwarf planet Pluto.
The spacecraft imaged and measured Jupiter, its rings, and its large moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. A huge amount of photos came from the Voyager spacecraft. Due to the nature of the flights, their stay near Tzedek lasted only a few days. Very little time for the findings to be transmitted to Israel.

The significant and massive research was done for the first time by the Galileo spacecraft which, as mentioned above, circled it for several years. The spacecraft was not put into orbit around the large moons. In its journey around Jupiter, in some of its orbits, the flight paths were designed so that it would pass by a different moon each time, return to orbit Jupiter and once again be thrown towards the same moon or towards another moon. This flight pattern allowed almost complete photographic coverage of them and maps (these maps are in my possession). For the first time, a geological study of them became possible and to this day hundreds of studies have been written about these moons.

Although most of the time of the Juno spacecraft will be devoted to the investigation of Jupiter, it is likely that from time to time the spacecraft's camera will also be directed towards the moons. These will not be close-up shots that allow focusing on certain areas, but a panoramic view. It will be possible to compare these images with photographs of this type taken by the Galileo spacecraft and see if there have been changes on a global scale in the moons. It may be possible to do additional studies such as the effect of the tidal forces of the moons on each other and the effect of these forces on the part of Jupiter on them. Experience shows that during the flight of spacecraft around the planets, new lines of thought develop for the utilization of instruments of spacecraft orbiting planets for purposes that were not thought of during the development of the spacecraft.

Jupiter has four large moons that, depending on their size, could be planets. The closest to Jupiter is Io with a diameter of 3643 km, followed by Europa with a diameter of 3122 km. The third Ganymede with a diameter of 5262 km and the last Callisto with a diameter of 4821 km. For scale, the first two are more or less close in diameter to the diameter of the Earth's moon, 3476 km. The last two moons are close in diameter to the diameter of Mercury (the planet Mercury) which is 4900 km in diameter. It turned out that each of them is a world in itself with its own unique characteristics. Volcanic eruptions were filmed on Io in real time, events not seen on Mars, its hundreds of volcanoes. Europe, large parts of it are covered in water ice and there is at least one water ocean under the ground and these are oceans of enormous dimensions. The presence of oceans is especially challenging since it could imply the existence of life on this moon. Telescopic observations suggest that it has geysers of water. A phenomenon observed so far on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Ganymede is covered by a global network of malls. They appear in clusters and are cut by other clusters at different angles. Callisto is the most geologically boring moon. It is as full of craters as Earth's moon. No craters were observed on Io and the other two moons do have craters but in a tiny amount. In a rough estimate, Callisto could have tens of thousands of craters, and Europa and Ganymede could include hundreds of craters. Why one moon is saturated with craters and the other two with very little requires research in itself. As for Iyo, the explanation is that the volcanic activity mimics the craters.. A full and detailed explanation of each of these moons can be found in my articles on these moons found on the science website

In fact, an in-depth study of these moons and of Jupiter cannot be satisfied with just one spacecraft that is launched every few years and enters orbit around Jupiter and circles it for several years. It is necessary to go in a very massive research direction and this will only be possible within the framework of international cooperation. The first thing to think about is breakthrough propulsion methods. Flight to Jupiter continues as we have seen for several years. The flight of the spacecraft that recently arrived at the planet Pluto lasted 10 years. Planning and development of such spacecraft also took years. For example, the design of the Xsini spacecraft lasted 7 years. At such a rate, the study of the planets and their moons could last 100 years. A technological breakthrough is required that will dramatically shorten the duration of the flight. An example of this can be seen in my article "To Mars in less than a week" (https://www.hayadan.org.il/mazarmars070603). Let's imagine that at this rate it will be possible to reach justice in a month. In terms of research possibilities, the result is fantastic.
Jupiter is actually a mini solar system. It is surrounded by 4 large moons, dozens of small moons ranging in size from a few kilometers to 200 kilometers (the Amalthea moon) and rings. The moons are actually asteroids for all intents and purposes, except instead of orbiting the Sun they orbit Jupiter. At the same time, each of the big moons must develop its own work plan. It means dashes and landings. A number of spacecraft must be placed around each moon that will surround and investigate it thoroughly. In polar orbit and spacecraft orbiting each moon above the equator. in order to reach some kind of standardization. All orbiters will be equipped with identical research instruments, except for cases where new instruments are needed to study phenomena unique to any given moon. Since these moons do not have atmospheres, meteorological research instruments are not relevant. Another possibility that should be done at the same time is landings on the surface - static landers (they are fixed at the landing site, such as the Viking spacecraft that landed on Mars in 1976) and all-terrain vehicles such as those currently moving on Mars. Of course it will be necessary to adjust them to the surface. Each vehicle will have 4 or 6 wheels, each self-propelled, and for Europe covered in ice, it is desirable to design off-road vehicles on sleds. Another option that is starting to be thought about today is mini submarines. These are for the moon Europa. From the moment such a lander reaches the ground, it starts drilling to reach an underground ocean. Any such spacecraft will collect soil samples for investigation.

Such a complex system of spacecraft around the moons and on the ground requires coordination. For this, it will be necessary to develop a central spacecraft. This spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and monitor all spacecraft. The option to think about is a manned space station. The space station will have maintenance teams from where they will go to any place where a repair is required. From this space station it will also be possible to study Jupiter itself and its moons.

One study that should be considered is observational astronomy. The research can already be built into a theoretical model. Like Earth's moon, the large moons show Jupiter only one side of them. Is the hemisphere hidden from the sun dark all the time? The answer is no. Because of the strong reflection of light from Jupiter when the moons show him half of the other hemisphere the surface is illuminated by the light reflected from Jupiter. It would be interesting, for example, to compare the light of the Sun and the light of Jupiter. If, for example, we assume that one of these moons has an atmosphere and has life on it, how does this affect their biological clock. Because Venus and Mercury are closer to the Sun than Earth, they can only be seen at sunrise or sunset. The same with the Jupiter moons. Each moon is a rising or setting star for the moon further away from Jupiter. If we take for example Callisto, the farthest moon from Jupiter, then the rest of the moons are sunrise or sunset stars for me. The closer the moon is to Jupiter, the smaller its angular rise above the horizon at sunrise or sunset and the shorter the viewing time. Just like Venus and Mercury. Mercury is closer to the Sun than Venus, so its angular rise above the Earth's horizon is shorter.

The Juno spacecraft opens a new line of thought regarding future studies of Jupiter both in the engineering and astronomical aspects. It is not difficult to guess that there will be surprises and it will be necessary to rewrite astronomy and geology books.