Juno at Jupiter

Students follow NASA's Juno mission from its 2011 launch and Earth gravity assist to its July 2016 arrival at Jupiter, and learn how a solar-powered, radiation-armored spacecraft in a polar orbit measured Jupiter's fuzzy core, deep winds, polar cyclones and magnetic field, and flew past Ganymede, Europa and Io.

Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops8 stops

The full guide, with the 40-minute plan, discussion key points, exit ticket, activities, transcript and PDF, comes with a teacher license. Already licensed? Use Open the full guide.

What students will see and do

Students start at Earth for the launch, visit the Sun to understand solar power far from home, see the Juno spacecraft, spend three stops at Jupiter (polar orbits, the interior, polar cyclones and the Great Red Spot), return to Juno for its moon flybys, and end at Earth with JunoCam. Aetherion pauses for discussion at the Sun (solar versus nuclear power), at Jupiter's 'Seeing Inside a Giant' stop (measuring the interior with gravity) and at Juno's 'Visiting the Moons' stop (giving an older mission new goals).

Learning objectives

• Explain why sunlight is much weaker at Jupiter and how Juno was designed to run on solar power anyway.
• Describe how Juno's polar orbit and titanium vault protect it from Jupiter's radiation.
• Explain how gravity, microwave and magnetic measurements reveal what is inside a planet that cannot be seen.
• Identify at least three discoveries Juno made about Jupiter and its moons.

NGSS connections

Stops on this journey

1. Leaving Home
2. Solar Power, Far from the Sun (discussion stop)
3. A Spinning, Armored Explorer
4. Over the Poles
5. Seeing Inside a Giant (discussion stop)
6. Storms at the Poles
7. Visiting the Moons (discussion stop)
8. A Mission for Everyone

Vocabulary

• orbit
• polar orbit
• gravity assist
• solar array
• radiation belt
• magnetometer
• cyclone
• core