Celebrating Juno’s arrival at Jupiter:  Tuesday, 5 July 2016, Athens.

The Juno mission has arrived at Jupiter!  NASA received confirmation that spacecraft was inserted into orbit successfully on  8:53pm PDT, 4th July (3:53 UTC, 5th July) 2016.  Join us tonight for a free public event in Athens to celebrate.  If you can’t make it in person, watch live via Google Hangout.

When: Tuesday, 5 July 2016, 7:00-8:30 pm

Where: Coral Hotel Athens
Paleo Faliron, 175 61,Athens, Greece

A round table discussion will be held with the participation of:

• Dr. Scott Bolton, Juno Principal Investigator (Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio) on live link from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Prof. Michel Blanc, Juno Co-Investigator (L’ Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées) on live link from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Dr. Athena Coustenis, Director of Research CNRS (Paris Observatory), Europlanet Deputy Coordinator
• Dr. Iannis Dandouras, Director of Research CNRS (IRAP Toulouse)
• Prof. Ioannis Daglis, Professor of Space Physics (National & Kapodistrian University of Athens)

Book your free ticket.

Download a flyer for the event.

About Juno

Jupiter is by far the largest planet in the solar system. Humans have been studying it for hundreds of years, yet still major questions about this gas world remain unanswered. Clues about the origins of our solar system may be hidden beneath the clouds and massive storms of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere. The Juno spacecraft will, for the first time, see below Jupiter’s dense cover of clouds (this is why the mission was named after the Roman goddess, who was Jupiter’s wife, and who could also see through clouds).

Juno’s primary goal is to reveal the story of the formation and evolution of Jupiter. Using long-proven technologies on a spinning spacecraft placed in an elliptical polar orbit, Juno will observe Jupiter’s gravity and magnetic fields, atmospheric dynamics and composition, and the coupling between the interior, atmosphere and magnetosphere that determines the planet’s properties and drives its evolution. An understanding of the origin and evolution of Jupiter, as the archetype of giant planets, can provide the knowledge needed to help us understand the origin of our solar system and planetary systems around other stars.

Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in August 2011. After a five-year journey the spacecraft is scheduled to reach Jupiter on 4 July 2016. Juno will then fire its main engine and slip into orbit around the giant planet to begin its scientific mission. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 33 times, skimming to within 5,000 kilometers above the planet’s cloud tops every 11 days, for approximately one year*.

*Information provided from Juno press kit and mission fact sheet. More information on Juno: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/

Map of venue