In ancient Roman mythology, Jupiter is identified with the Greek Zeus. He is often referred to as "God the Father" or "Father of the Gods". Jupiter was the son of Saturn, the brother of Neptune, and the sister of Juno, who was also his wife. In turn, the planet Jupiter is the largest planet solar system.

Ironically, sent to Jupiter for "matchmaking" spacecraft named "Juno". And while the probe has yet to discover many of the secrets of its "narrowed", we will consider a few already known facts about this gas giant.

Jupiter could become a star

In 1610, Galileo discovered Jupiter and its four big moons: Europe, Io, Callisto and Ganymede, which today are called the Galilean satellites. This was the first time that a space object was observed orbiting a planet. Previously, observations were made only of the Moon revolving around the Earth. Later, thanks to this very observation, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus gave weight to his theory that the Earth is not the center of the universe. This is how the heliocentric model of the world appeared.

Being the most major planet The solar system, Jupiter has a mass that is 2 times the mass of all other planets in the solar system. Jupiter's atmosphere is more like that of a star than a planet, and is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. Scientists agree that if the reserves of these elements were 80 times more, then Jupiter would turn into a real star. And with four main moons and many (67 in total) smaller moons, Jupiter itself is almost a miniature copy of its own solar system. This planet is so huge that it would take more than 1,300 Earth-sized planets to fill the volume of this gas giant.

The amazing color of Jupiter consists of light and dark belt zones, which, in turn, are caused by constant powerful winds blowing from east to west at a speed of 650 km per hour. Areas with light clouds in upper layers atmospheres contain frozen, crystallized ammonia particles. Darker clouds contain different chemical elements. These climatic features are constantly changing and never linger for long intervals.

In addition to the fact that it often rains real diamonds on Jupiter, another famous feature of this gas giant is its huge red spot. This spot is a giant hurricane rotating counterclockwise. The size of this hurricane is almost three times the diameter of the earth. The wind speed in the center of the hurricane reaches 450 km per hour. The giant red spot is constantly changing in size, either increasing and becoming even brighter, or decreasing and becoming dimmer.

Amazing magnetic field

Strength magnetic field Jupiter is almost 20,000 times more powerful than the strength of the Earth's magnetic field. Jupiter can rightfully be considered the king of the magnetic fields of our planetary system. The planet is surrounded by an incredible field of electrically charged particles that non-stop bombarding other planets in the solar system. At the same time, the level of radiation near Jupiter is up to 1,000 times higher than the lethal one for humans. The radiation density is so strong that it can cause damage even to well-protected spacecraft.

Jupiter's magnetosphere has a length of 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 km towards the Sun and up to 1 billion km towards external borders systems.

Jupiter is the king of rotation

It only takes Jupiter about 10 hours to complete a full rotation on its axis. A day on Jupiter ranges from 9 hours 56 minutes at both poles to 9 hours 50 minutes at the gas giant's equatorial zone. As a result of this feature, the equatorial zone of the planet is 7 percent wider than the polar ones.

As a gas giant, Jupiter does not rotate as a single solid spherical object, such as, for example, the Earth. Instead, the planet rotates somewhat faster in the equatorial zone and slightly slower in the polar regions. The total rotation speed in this case is about 50,000 km per hour, which is 27 times faster speed rotation of the earth.

largest source of radio waves

Another feature of Jupiter that boggles the imagination is how powerful radio waves it emits. Jupiter's radio noise even affects shortwave antennas here on Earth. Radio waves that are not audible to the human ear can acquire very bizarre audio signals due to ground radio equipment picking them up.

Most often, these radio bursts are produced as a result of the instability of the plasma field in the gas giant's magnetosphere. Often these noises cause a stir among ufologists who believe they have caught signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. Most astrophysicists theorize that the ion gases above Jupiter and its magnetic fields sometimes act like very powerful radio lasers, emitting radiation so dense that Jupiter's radio signals sometimes outshine the Sun's shortwave radio signals. Scientists believe that such a special power of radio emission is somehow connected with the volcanic satellite Io.

NASA was very surprised when the Voyager 1 spacecraft discovered three rings around Jupiter's equator in 1979. These rings are much dimmer than Saturn's, and therefore impossible to detect with ground-based equipment.

The main ring is flat and about 30 km thick and about 6,000 km wide. The inner ring - even more rarefied and often referred to as a halo - is about 20,000 km thick. The halo of this inner ring almost reaches the outer limits of the planet's atmosphere. In this case, both rings are composed of tiny dark particles.

The third ring is even more transparent than the other two and is called the "spider ring". It consists mainly of dust that accumulates around the four moons of Jupiter: Adrastea, Metis, Amalthea and Thebes. The radius of the web ring reaches about 130,000 km. Planetologists believe that the rings of Jupiter, like those of Saturn, could have been formed as a result of collisions of numerous space objects, such as asteroids and comets.

planetary protector

Since Jupiter is the second largest (the first place belongs to the Sun) space objects in the solar system, its gravitational forces, most likely participated in the final formation of our system and probably even allowed life to appear on our planet.

According to the study, Jupiter may once have pulled Uranus and Neptune to where they are now in the system. In a study published in the journal Science, it is said that Jupiter, with the participation of Saturn, attracted enough material at the dawn of the solar system to form the planets of the inner boundary.

In addition, scientists are confident that the gas giant is a kind of shield against asteroids and comets, reflecting them from other planets. Jupiter's gravitational field affects many asteroids and changes their orbits. Thanks to this, many of these objects do not fall on the planets, including our Earth. These asteroids are called "Trojan asteroids". Three of them, the largest, are known as Hector, Achilles and Agamemnon and are named after the heroes of Homer's Iliad, which describes the events of the Trojan War.

Jupiter's and Earth's cores are the same size

Scientists are firmly convinced that the inner core of Jupiter is 10 times smaller than the entire planet Earth. At the same time, there is an assumption that up to 80-90 percent of the core diameter falls on liquid metallic hydrogen. If we take into account that the diameter of the Earth is about 13,000 km, then the diameter of Jupiter's core should be about 1,300 km. And this, in turn, puts it on a par with the radius of the inner solid core of the Earth, which is also about 1,300 km.

Atmosphere of Jupiter. Dream or nightmare of a chemist?

Jupiter's atmospheric composition is 89.2 percent molecular hydrogen and 10.2 percent helium. The remaining percentages are stocks of ammonia, deuterium, methane, ethane, water, ammonia ice particles, and ammonium sulfide particles. In general: an explosive mixture is clearly unsuitable for human life.

Since Jupiter's magnetic field is 20,000 times more powerful than Earth's, it is most likely that the gas giant has a very dense inner core of unknown composition, covered with a thick outer layer liquid metallic hydrogen rich in helium. And all this is "wrapped" in an atmosphere, mainly consisting of molecular hydrogen. Well, just a true gas giant.

Calisto - long-suffering companion

Callisto, Jupiter's second largest moon

One more interesting feature Jupiter is its moon called Calisto. Calisto is the most distant of the four Galilean satellites. It takes one Earth week to complete one revolution around Jupiter. Since its orbit lies outside the gas giant's radiation belt, Callisto suffers less from tidal forces than other Galilean moons. But since Kilisto is a tidally locked moon, like our Moon, for example, one of its sides always faces Jupiter.

The diameter of Calisto is 5,000 km, which is about the size of the planet Mercury. After Ganymede and Titan, Calisto is the third largest moon in the solar system (our moon is fifth on this list, and Io is fourth). The temperature on the surface of Calisto is at minus 139 degrees Celsius.
Calisto was discovered by the great astronomer Galileo Galilei and actually deprived him of a peaceful life. The discovery of Calisto contributed to the strengthening of faith in his heliocentric theory and added fuel to the fire of the astronomer's already burning conflict with the Catholic Church.

The American automatic interplanetary station Juno made it known that its equipment withstood the flight Earth - Jupiter ...

So I put on three wings and you are closer

NASA's Juno (Juno, Juno), launched 5 years ago, safely reached Jupiter and on July 5, 2016 entered the orbit of the giant planet - the fifth planet from the Sun. Now he is there and flies, spreading three solar panels- the largest of those that have ever been equipped with spacecraft. Behind these batteries is another record - the farthest use of solar energy with simultaneous flight stabilization.

Jupiter has the most powerful radiation belts, permeated with hard radiation. Scientists feared that it would damage the station's measuring equipment, even hidden from sin in a special titanium shell. But it passed. It has already been possible to confirm the performance of five scientific instruments. The camera is also working - JunoCam, installed on board. It is similar to the one that the Curiosity rover is equipped with. The first images taken by JunoCam from orbit have already been transmitted and received on July 10th. NASA enthusiastically publishes them on its website, reporting that Jupiter was photographed from a distance of 4 million 300 thousand kilometers. The next session - with clearer images - is scheduled for August 27, when Juno will fly closer to the planet.

As a precaution, Juno's orbit passes through the poles of the giant planet, where the radiation is not so intense. In addition, she is very elongated. So, flying far away, the station will "rest" from the destructive environment.

The current orbit is an intermediate one. While on it, Juno makes one revolution in about 53 days. Next, starting with scientific work, the device will go into a 14-day orbit. And according to the plan, he must make 37 turns, again moving away, then approaching Jupiter. The trajectory of some turns will pass one and a half thousand kilometers from the surface of the clouds.

The main task of the mission The task of Juno is to study the gravitational and magnetic field of Jupiter, its atmosphere.

Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, promised that NASA would release the first scientific data collected by the station as early as September 1.

Juno will finish its flight in 2017 - scientists plan to drown the station in the atmosphere of Jupiter, collecting some additional data along the way. Juno will either burn or be crushed.

The reprisal against the station is necessary so that, left unattended, it does not crash on one of the many satellites of Jupiter and does not pollute it with something earthly. After all, there are suspicions that life can exist on one or even several large satellites - and some are larger than our Moon. At least in the form of microbes. Scientists would like to someday find "natives" and not those who arrived with Juno from Earth.

WHAT IS HIDDEN UNDER THE CLOUD

Juno is a name from Roman mythology. That was the name of the wife of Jupiter - the main god. IN Greek mythology these divine spouses Zeus and Hera. Jupiter - aka Zeus - was known as an incredible lecher, entered into numerous intimate relationships with both goddesses and nymphs, and even with simple earthly women. In order to hide his adventures from his wife, Jupiter covered himself with dense clouds - he behaved outrageously under them. But Juno, aka Hera, learned to see through the cloud layer. And watched over her unfaithful husband.

So NASA scientists believe that their Juno will also see through the densest clouds. Without any mysticism. She now has a microwave radiometer - Microwave Radiometer (MWR), which allows you to look inside the atmosphere of Jupiter for 550 kilometers.

The real Jupiter is also full of secrets that I would like to reveal along the way.

1. Thunder and lightning

The so-called Great Red Spot (GRS) looks very mysterious - a giant atmospheric vortex - the largest hurricane in the solar system, in which several planets like the Earth would easily drown. The hurricane has not subsided for at least 350 years - since it was first noticed. Moreover, all these years the vortex funnel has been in the same place. It rotates at a speed of about 500 kilometers per hour. But for some reason it is gradually decreasing.

On Jupiter, by the way, it is also rich in other hurricanes, which sometimes line up in bizarre "installations".

Here, for example, astronomer Damian Peach captured an object in the atmosphere of the planet that is very similar to Mickey Mouse, the famous Disney cartoon character.

As scientists explained, Mickey Mouse is huge, spread over tens of thousands of kilometers. Formed by three hurricanes raging in the gas giant's atmosphere. "Ears" are anticyclones - zones with high pressure. "Muzzle" - a cyclone - a zone of low pressure.

Jupiter generally storms often. If you look closely, it is covered with spots of cyclones and anticyclones. The reason for this atmospheric anomaly is unclear. In addition, giant lightning sparkles on Jupiter - thousands of times longer than on Earth. Probably, and the thunder rumbles such that you can go deaf.

2. Salute in honor of Juno

Rings of fire sparkle at Jupiter's poles auroras. They are very stable - they blaze for a long time and brightly. Through telescopes, astronomers can see flashes from Earth. And in 2016 - June 30 - when Juno flew up to the target, the strongest radiance flashed on Jupiter in the entire history of their observations.

“Looks like Jupiter is setting off fireworks to celebrate Juno's arrival,” joked Jonathan Nichols of the University of Leicester.

3. Fire rings

The images taken in the infrared range show that under the cloud layer are powerful sources heat. Some look like stripes, others like spots. Due to some mysterious processes, Jupiter generates energy - it radiates 60 percent more than it receives from the Sun.

It is possible that Jupiter is a failed star. And maybe even extinct, which some hotheads do not exclude.

4. Radio broadcast

Jupiter is broadcasting. Figuratively speaking, of course. Nothing meaningful - just some sporadic bursts at frequencies of 5 to 43 MHz. But they are the most powerful in the solar system after those radio waves emitted by the Sun itself.

5. X-ray machine

In 2000, data obtained using the Chandra orbiting telescope demonstrated that Jupiter has sources of pulsating X-rays. They were called large X-ray spots. The nature of the spots is unclear.

6. Like a top

Jupiter rotates around its axis faster than all other planets, making one revolution in about 10 hours - fast for such an impressive mass. 10 hours - this is how long a day on the planet lasts.

Due to the rapid rotation of Jupiter "inflates" in the region of the equator. Here its radius is 71492 kilometers. The polar radius is less - 66854 kilometers.

7. What's inside him

And the most main secret. With the help of instruments installed on Juno, scientists intend to test a very controversial hypothesis that inside the planet, considered a gas giant, there is a solid core - maybe rocky, or maybe from an exotic material - metallic hydrogen.

AND AT THIS TIME

Is there another planet inside Jupiter?

Calculations and computer simulations carried out by the Chinese astronomer Shu Lin L from Peking University in China and his American colleague Douglas Lin from the University of California, Santa Cruz showed: when There were many more planets in the solar system than now. Among them were the so-called "super-Earths" - planets whose mass is many times greater than the Earth's.

"Super-Earths" are necessarily present in other star systems. They were the first to be discovered by telescopes on other worlds. But in ours there is no such variety. Where did the massive neighbors go?

Modeling gave the answer to this question. It turned out that the "super-Earths" collided with the gas giants and became their cores. For example, Jupiter once swallowed a planet with a mass of 10 Earth. This is at least.

According to the researchers, all the planets of the solar system have experienced collisions with bodies of a larger or smaller size. Including our Earth, from which something massive broke off the Moon.

BY THE WAY

Sometimes Jupiter stares at us. Like a cyclops

On April 21, 2014, astronomers, observing Jupiter, saw that he was also looking at them. In the literal sense of the word. Looks with a huge eye, which was formed on the surface of a giant planet. So amazing, almost mystical phenomenon, captured the cosmic Hubble telescope(Hubble), which was aimed at the Great Red Spot - the most famous "landmark" of Jupiter. Followed the changes that take place there. Photographed. In one of the pictures, Jupiter appeared like a kind of cyclops.

The mystery of the phenomenon was quickly revealed. As NASA experts explained, Jupiter "goggled" his eye not at all meaningfully, but as a result of the fact that a shadow from Ganymede, one of the planet's many satellites, fell on the Great Red Spot. Thus, in the "eye" it was as if a "pupil" appeared. And there was an illusion of sight.

REFERENCE

The Great Red Spot (GRS) was discovered by Giovanni Cassini in 1665. Until recently - before the Voyagers transmitted high-quality images of Jupiter, it was believed that the BKP - this is something solid - rises above the planet and sticks out of its bowels. But it turned out that the spot is an atmospheric formation - an anticyclone, and in fact a hurricane of unimaginable size. In length, it stretched for about 30 thousand kilometers, in width - for 12.

In the form of the BKP - a poured out eye, for which only the pupil was missing (see above).

The BKP is the largest atmospheric vortex in the solar system. Several planets like our Earth could easily sink in it. The wind speed inside the vortex reaches 500 kilometers per hour. This hurricane is the longest. Exists at least since it was discovered. That is, it has not stopped for almost 350 years. But it is changing. If we believe the observations of 100 years ago, then the BKP was about 2 times larger.

Ganymede is a moon of Jupiter and the largest moon in the solar system. Discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. That is, before the BKP. The diameter of Ganymede is 5268 kilometers. It weighs 2 times more than our Moon, whose diameter is 3474 kilometers.

BUT WHAT IF

We ourselves will not be from Jupiter?

There is a crazy, but very popular and beautiful hypothesis that the gas giant was once a star. And humanity even caught this miracle. After all, many peoples remember in myths that they saw two Suns in the sky.

More scientific reason: in the universe, most stars - binary - are in pairs. And loners, like our Sun, on the contrary, are rare.

Jupiter with its many moons resembles the solar system in miniature. Very large "planets" revolve around it. Including those covered with a thick layer of ice. For example, Europe, where the same NASA is going to look for life. Search - in the ocean, which is almost certainly preserved under the ice.

And who knows, if Jupiter was once a star, then Europe could not be a frozen world, but quite alive. Fiction, of course, but what if intelligent beings lived there? Maybe our ancestors?

Gravity on Europa is much less than Earth's. But what is surprising is that we are just ill-adapted to the current gravity. We earn from it varicose veins, inflammation of the joints. And if we fall from two or three meters, we break bones. Our skin - with the exception of the Negro - can hardly endure the scorching rays of the Great Sun - it comes to burns. The eyes are also not well adapted - most people wear sunglasses. But the Small Sun - sparing Jupiter in the form of some kind of red dwarf would have come in just right. By the way, in our galaxy there are red dwarfs, which are only 30 percent larger than Jupiter.

Suddenly we are not really local ...

The king of the planets (sometimes even called a failed star) Jupiter is not without reason named after the supreme Deity of the ancient pantheon. A handsome man of the star-planetary world, with his very appearance causing admiration and awe, he was the main divine star in Ancient Babylon and neighboring countries, personifying the lord of the Mesopotamian Gods - Marduk. “In the morning, when the stars of the northern part of the sky disappear, the great Jupiter [the star of Marduk] stands motionless in the middle of the sky and is still faintly visible,” scientists read on one of the clay tablets. Under the name of the star of Marduk, he was also known in Ancient Hellas.

Subsequently, the Hellenes retained the royal name for him - the star of Zeus, and the Romans adopted it. Incidentally, among the Persians, Jupiter was also considered a royal star, but only under the name of the supreme Zoroastrian Deity - Ahura Mazda.

When the telescope tube was first pointed at Jupiter, the regal purple-spotted face of the planet, involuntarily leading to reverence, immediately opened in all its glory. And one more feature of the “lord of the planets” is its flatness at the poles, which makes the disk appear compressed when observed. As meticulous astronomers later calculated, the polar diameter of the planet is 7% less than the equatorial one. The reason for such an unusual phenomenon in the planetary world is the rapid rotation of Jupiter around its axis: one revolution of the giant lasts only 10 Earth hours.

Moreover, the duration of the day increases as you move from the equator to the poles, which can only be due to the fact that the giant of the solar system is not a solid, but a liquid planet. This liquid is gases liquefied under the influence of breathtaking cold.

Photographs taken at close range by automatic interplanetary stations once again confirmed the grandeur and uniqueness of the beauty of nature. The size of Jupiter only reinforces the impression of the observer: its mass is 300 times greater than that of the earth, and its volume is even 1000 times greater. The mass of Jupiter, in addition, exceeds the total mass of all the other planets in the solar system. It is believed that in the center of the liquid giant planet there is still a small solid core.

A powerful, thick, like sour cream, and poisonous atmosphere rises thousands of kilometers above the planet, being in constant motion, whirlwinds and whirlpools. At the epicenter of this cosmic hurricane, the mysterious Great Red Spot, the calling card of the planet, is slowly moving, surpassing our Earth in size.

Its origin has long been hotly debated. At first, it was believed that the Spot was the result of the most powerful volcanic activity on the planet, and the specific shade was caused by red-hot lava. Then they rushed to the other extreme and began to argue that the Spot is a monstrous low-temperature iceberg formed by frozen helium, which floats in the atmosphere of Jupiter, like terrestrial ice mountains in the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean. The next hypothesis is hydrodynamic: The red spot is of vortex origin and is formed by a giant standing wave above some depression or hill. Finally, the meteorological hypothesis prevailed, so to speak: the Red Spot is a hurricane-cyclone of colossal proportions, strength and energy, constantly raging on the planet. True, when compared with terrestrial typhoons, they should gradually change, and after a certain period of time, completely lose their strength and energy. What can not be said about the Jupiter Spot: although it changes its brightness, it still remains a relatively stable moving phenomenon.

Information about the "red spot" of Jupiter, obtained in 1996 from the board of the American automatic interplanetary station "Galileo", made significant corrections to the speculative ideas that existed before in the scientific community. In the area of ​​the "red spot" with a diameter exceeding the diameter of the Earth, thunderclouds up to 100 km long were also found at an altitude of 50 km above ordinary clouds. The physical and meteorological parameters of the detected clouds almost completely coincide with the similar characteristics of terrestrial typhoons, with the difference that on Jupiter they rush at a frantic speed - about 300 km / h.

All this has never interfered with discussions on the topic possible forms life on Jupiter. This question was discussed constantly, passionately and not without hilarious nonsense associated with the names of great scientists. When Galileo discovered the first four moons of Jupiter (there are currently fourteen known), another major builder of modern science is Huygens, the author wave theory light - immediately asked the question: what follows from this (Huygens, by the way, is credited with the discovery of the Red Spot on Jupiter). What followed was a classic example of speculative reasoning based solely on the play of the imagination. Jupiter's moons are its moons. The moon is a satellite of the Earth - the root cause of oceanic tides. The four moons of Jupiter (if Huygens only knew that there are 14 of them!) cause tides that are four times stronger.

Consequently, on the Jupiterian oceans - oh, how not calm!

Sailors don't sit idle there. They are in constant struggle with the elements. The winds on Jupiter must also be four times stronger than those on Earth. They are four times as strong and four times as fast as they shake the sails and tear the ropes on the Jovian ships. The problem with hemp on Jupiter is four times more urgent than on Earth. This is how the existence of life on Jupiter was proved in the 17th century. Contrary to all the canons of Aristotelian logic, but, you see, there is something exciting and romantic in this!

In our time, the possibility of life on Jupiter is not completely denied. Of course, there can exist only completely different forms of life in comparison with terrestrial ones and, most likely, the simplest ones. However, the ingenuity of nature knows no bounds. The human imagination (whether scientific or poetic) can't keep up with it anyway. At present, the probability of the presence of some kind of life forms on the moons of Jupiter is more accepted. So, quite recently, in the spring of 1997, high-quality images of one of the 14 Jupiter moons, Europa, were obtained. The American spacecraft "Galileo" flew at a distance of only some 692 km from its surface and transmitted sensational information to Earth: Europe is encased in a powerful ice shell, pierced by even lines of mountain ranges. Ice means water. Water means life. Or at least a significant fraction of the likelihood of such. Even under a kilometer-long crust of ice, water can remain in a liquid state, like under ice. North Pole Earth (adjusted for thickness). True, on Europa, the own hot core of the Jupiterian satellite helps prevent water from freezing to the ground (on Earth, in addition to its own geothermal processes, energy from the Sun plays a significant role).

The lunar family of the king of the planets - Jupiter - is as unique as the "owner" himself. Here is a whole space zoo of "unseen animals"; among them are the two largest satellites in the solar system - Ganymede and Callisto. The surface of the first is covered with frequent "wrinkles" of mountain ranges and craters.

Recently, natural canal beds have been discovered here. Combined with the thick layers of ice that cover the surface of Ganymede, they suggest bold assumptions. An even more striking picture is given by Callisto - the satellite is completely covered with "pockmarks" of large and small craters - traces of the most powerful meteorite attacks. The last, the 14th satellite of Jupiter, was discovered quite recently, in 1979, during the transplanetary flight of the American automatic spacecraft Voyager 1. And three years later, at the XVIII General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, this celestial body was given the name Adrastea (in honor of the Hellenic Goddess of fate and retribution - a correlate of Dike and Nemesis).

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From the book Secrets of the Lunar Horoscope author Semenova Anastasia Nikolaevna

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From the book Volume 5. Planetology, part II. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter author Vronsky Sergey Alekseevich

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The science

Not much is currently known about Jupiter's moon Europa. The most important information about this object of the solar system was obtained by approaching it spaceships NASA Voyager 2 in 1979 and "Galileo" in the second half of the 1990s. Therefore, astronomers began to seriously think about sending new devices soon.

Despite the fact that in the past the ships approached the satellite by very a short time, scientists were able to see it cracked and icy surface with obvious signs of the existence of the ocean liquid water under a hard crust.

This environment makes it possible microbial life forms scientists say. If astronomers ever send robotic spacecraft to Europa, they should make careful preparations to understand what exactly they need to take with them and what they should look for there.

Jupiter's moon Europa is believed to be main contender for the existence of life in the solar system, and a mission to this object will be able to reveal all the secrets. For example, scientists have yet to figure out what red streaks and cracks cover the surface of the object, what is the chemical composition of the satellite, and whether it contains organic molecules which are the building blocks for living organisms?

First of all, scientists believe that the mission to Europe will take material samples at different depths(0.5-2 cm and 5-10 cm), so that conclusions can be drawn about the composition of the soil and its chemical composition, as well as the characteristics of salts, organic materials, and so on.

The second objective of the mission will be to study geophysical features of Europe, seismology and magnetometry. You will also need to penetrate the ice crust to the ocean.

Unfortunately, for now, the flight to Europe is just far-reaching plans for NASA, since at present colossal budgets leave for other equally important missions.

Jupiter's total 67 satellites, but most of them (about 50) are very small - less 10 kilometers in diameter. The number of satellites, however, changes periodically. Most of the satellites were discovered starting in the 1970s, after various spacecraft began to approach Jupiter.

A large number of moons Jupiter owes its gigantic mass, due to the gravitational stability in the orbit of the planet, such a large number of objects, including relatively large ones. The Earth, for example, has only one satellite, since its gravitational field does not allow you to keep another satellite in orbit.

Satellites revolve around Jupiter at different speeds and for different periods of time: 7 hours to 3 Earth years.

Though Europe- one of the largest moons of Jupiter, it is the smallest of the four Galilean satellites.

Europa is slightly smaller than the moon.

The surface of Europa is very smooth, it is covered with ice thick about 100 kilometers, there are almost no craters on it, but there are stripes and cracks. Surface temperature approx. minus 150-190 degrees Celsius. Thanks to the ice crust, Europa reflects light well, which makes it very bright. The surface of the satellite is relatively young - 20 to 180 million years.

On the surface of Europe there are peculiar "freckles", darker spots that have formed due to the existence liquid ocean under a layer of ice according to scientists.

Four scientific papers on the findings of the Juno mission. Let me remind you that since the summer of 2016, this device has been in orbit around Jupiter. The main task of Juno is to study the internal structure of the gas giant and its magnetosphere.

The data collected by Juno suggests that Jupiter's gravitational field is asymmetrical in the north-south direction. Researchers attribute this fact to the movement of gas flows in the planet's atmosphere. Streams on the north and south pole Jupiter can carry a different mass of matter, which explains the uneven gravitational field.

Juno also managed to measure the depth of Jupiter's famous cloud belts, which can be seen even with an amateur telescope. Measurements showed that their thickness is about 3,000 km. The cloud belts account for about 1% of the mass of the gas giant. This is more than three times the mass of the Earth. For comparison, on earth's atmosphere accounts for only 1/1000,000 of the mass of our planet.

Due to Jupiter's fast rotation period (about 10 hours), the planet's cloud belts are shaped like nested cylinders. Deeper than 3000 km, atmospheric flows are destroyed. Perhaps they are slowed down by Jupiter's strong magnetic field. The Juno data show that below this mark, the nature of the rotation of the planet's matter already corresponds to a solid body.

Another amazing find is related to the poles of Jupiter. Using the JIRAM (Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper) instrument, Juno obtained infrared images of atmospheric formations 50 to 70 km below the planet's cloud cover. It turned out that the central cyclone dominates at the north pole of Jupiter, surrounded by eight smaller cyclones with diameters from 4000 to 4600 km. Together they form a figure resembling an octagon. The south pole also has a dominant central cyclone. Around it there are five cyclones with a diameter of 5600 to 7000 km, forming a pentagonal figure.

Computer images showing the structure of cyclones at Jupiter's north and south poles

Cyclones drift very slowly around the poles and, despite their close proximity to each other, maintain amazing stability, not breaking up or merging together. According to scientists, they have not observed anything like it on any other planet in the solar system.

To date, Juno has completed 10 of its planned 12 scientific orbits around Jupiter. The next time the station will approach the gas giant on April 1. According to the plan, after completing its main scientific program the apparatus must be deorbited and directed into the atmosphere of the planet. This event could take place in the summer. But given the good technical condition of the station and the data it has collected, it is possible that NASA will decide to extend the Juno mission.