Juno Spacecraft Now Orbiting Jupiter

[saevel25]

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/news/juno_spacecraft_in_orbit_around_mighty_jupiter

Just shy of 5 years the Juno spacecraft has successfully entered Jupiter's orbit. It occurred on July 4th, at 8:53 PM PDT. 

[Gunther]

Now this is something we can all get behind, regardless political affiliation, no?

My dad doesn't like it because he believes we should be spending those resources exploring our oceans.  I see his point but I've always been fascinated with space and what might be out there.

Good stuff.

[phillyk]

I guess my opinion here is more because I like astrophysics more and of how stars/galaxies form, evolve, etc..  It sounds like the mission of Juno is to gather more data on how our solar system evolved/how Jupiter itself evolved over time.  The overall mission sounds boring.  But, there are a ton of other "side" projects that will now occur on Jupiter so who knows what interesting stuff they may find.  

[phillyk]

59 minutes ago, Gunther said:

Now this is something we can all get behind, regardless political affiliation, no?

My dad doesn't like it because he believes we should be spending those resources exploring our oceans.  I see his point but I've always been fascinated with space and what might be out there.

Good stuff.

Well, in regards to ocean exploration vs space exploration.  Its all a matter of what can it do economically or politically or whatever.  Because for research to occur, you need funding.  Ocean exploration is dead unless you are exploring for a very specific purpose.  The field i wanted to go into was vent research and how life forms around these features.  One of the reasons for funding these specific projects is the potential to find an origin of life, which has its obvious interests.  Notice I said "An" not "the."  There may be multiple events for origins.  Space exploration has purposes for physics and potential to fulfill holes in our physical understanding of how the universe came to be and how all these force units come together.  But a lot of people want to know if life can indeed exist outside of our planet and there are groups willing to do anything to find out.  So, it's all a matter of who is interested in what and to what end, when it comes to research of oceans vs space.

[Braivo]

I think it is a great feat of human accomplishment. These things swell my feelings of national pride. Great work by that team. Even if we don't learn much about Jupiter we do learn a lot about space exploration with each mission. I am always curious as to what is out there. 

[natureboy]

4 hours ago, Braivo said:

I think it is a great feat of human accomplishment. These things swell my feelings of national pride. Great work by that team. Even if we don't learn much about Jupiter we do learn a lot about space exploration with each mission. I am always curious as to what is out there. 

There's a ton to still learn about the Jovian system, particularly the icy moons.