JUNO: Alabamians behind NASA's stunning mission to discover 'secrets' locked inside Jupiter

NASA's Juno spacecraft made it into Jupiter's orbit. (Photo: NASA) — NASA’s Juno spacecraft made it into Jupiter’s orbit. (Photo: NASA)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — After five years of flying through Space at nearly 150,000 miles per hour, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has reached Jupiter with a suite of scientific instruments that will “help us to understand the history of our own solar system and provide new insight into how planetary systems form and develop in our galaxy and beyond.” And as with almost all significant NASA accomplishments, Alabamians are playing an integral role.

Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

According to NASA, “the New Frontiers strategy is to explore the solar system with frequent, medium-class spacecraft missions that conduct high-quality, focused scientific investigations designed to enhance our understanding of the solar system. The program objective is to launch high-science-return planetary investigations on an average of one every 36 months.”

NASA scientists have never before been able to see below Jupiter’s dense cloud cover, mainly because the planet’s massive magnetic field and intense radiation make it extraordinarily difficult for any man-made objects to get close enough to peer through.

“The scariest thing to me about Juno are the unknowns,” said one NASA scientist. “So much about the environment that it will have to withstand is unknown. Nothings really certain about what’s going to happen.”

But Juno — an 8,000 pound behemoth — has been specially designed to withstand the unforgiving environment.

Now that Juno has successfully begun its orbit of our solar system’s largest planet, NASA says the spacecraft will “repeatedly dive between the planet and its intense belts of charged particle radiation, coming only about 3,000 miles from the cloud tops at closest approach. Juno’s primary goal is to improve our understanding of Jupiter’s formation and evolution. The spacecraft will investigate the planet’s origins, interior structure, deep atmosphere and magnetosphere.”

The importance of the Juno mission cannot be overstated.

“It just so happens deep inside this body are the secrets we’re after,” NASA explained. “The secrets about our solar system.”

Alabamians played an indispensable role in putting a man on the moon, and are now doing the same as NASA looks toward Mars. But in between manned missions, Alabamians are once again at the forefront of unmanned space exploration.

(Video below: Jupiter: Into the Unknown — NASA Juno Mission Trailer)