[아이뉴스24 정종오 기자] September becomes ‘Young Age’. Jupiter serves as the ‘elder brother’ of the solar system. It does a lot of defense by pulling asteroids hurtling toward Earth with gravity. Jupiter has a ‘Great Red Spot’ the size of Earth. Life is predicted to exist on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has recently released news related to Jupiter. On the 26th, Jupiter will make its closest approach to Earth in 59 years since 1963. In addition, the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) probe, which collided with an asteroid on the 27th Korean time, captured Jupiter and four moon and send them to Earth.
According to NASA, “DART photographed Jupiter from 26 million km from Earth and 700 million km from Jupiter.” DART will be sent to the asteroid Dimorphus on the 27th. It is a project to test if this collision can change the orbit of an asteroid.
There are no known asteroids that will hit Earth in the near future. However, the universe is so vast that there are many small asteroids that have not yet been observed, and it is impossible to monitor all of them. For this reason, DART is intended to prepare for a possible asteroid impact to Earth.
Launched on November 24, last year, the DART probe took in several stars and planets as it headed for the impact site. In order for the probe to go to the right destination, it finds a star in a certain area and sets its own direction. In this way, it finds its position and then flies. On July 1st and August 2nd, DART pointed its instruments at Jupiter to test the navigation system.
The collision point is also Didymos and her moon Timophus. Because of this, the DART team focused on Jupiter’s back moon Europa. Through this, it was possible to determine whether the DART navigation system was operating normally.
Jupiter, the ‘oldest’ planet in the solar system, will be closest to Earth on the 26th. At this time, Jupiter will reach a distance of 587,415,560 km from Earth. When Earth and Jupiter are at their most distant, the distance is about 965.6 million miles.
According to NASA, “If you observe Jupiter using binoculars near the moon (September 26), you will be able to find three or four Galilean moons.” Jupiter has around 70 moons, and Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are known as the ‘Galilean moons’.
In addition, the Junoor Juno spacecraft will approach Jupiter’s moon Europa within 358 km on the 29th. Europa is an icy moon, believed to have oceans. It is considered a moon with a high possibility of life and liquid water beneath the thick ice.
/Reporter Jeong Jong-oh (ikokid@inews24.com)<!–
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