Tag archives: Juno

By Hamish Johnston

Early next week NASA’s Juno spacecraft will fire its blasters and pop itself into orbit around Jupiter. On 24 June the approaching spacecraft fell under the spell of the planet’s powerful magnetic field and the transition was captured by Juno’s Waves instrument, which measures radio and plasma waves.

The signals have been converted to sound and you can listen to them in the above video. There are two abrupt changes in the signal from Waves. One is a shift from a high-pitch whisper to a low-frequency roar that occurs when Juno crosses Jupiter’s bow shock. This is where the supersonic solar wind is slowed by the planet’s magnetic field and the roar is the equivalent of a sonic boom here on Earth.

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