ESA, NASA tag-team on Jupiter

Stephen Withers
Monday, 05 March 2007 03:42

Science - Space

The US and European space agencies will team up this month for a coordinated observation of Jupiter from two separate spacecraft.

The ESA's Rosetta probe will provide a view from its position near Mars, while NASA's New Horizons delivers the close-ups during its flyby on the way to Pluto.

"This is an excellent opportunity to test both spacecraft and to collect valuable science data," said Gerhard Schwhem, Rosetta's mission manager, while New Horizon’s principal investigator Alan Stern observed "We couldn't pass up this opportunity to study Jupiter's meteorology, rings, aurorae, satellites, and magnetosphere."

Stern is also the designer of Rosetta's ultraviolet imaging spectrometer, and it was he who first suggested the joint observations. "Rosetta will give us the big picture context in which to see the up-close data from New Horizons," he said.

The Io torus - a ring of electrically charged gas surrounding Jupiter - is one of the targets of the observations. The torus is named after Jupiter's moon Io partly because its source is thought to be volcanoes on Io. Gas emitted during eruptions ionises in space, and becomes trapped by Jupiter's magnetic field.

During the observations, New Horizons will be in the 'tail' of magnetism that stretches out behind Jupiter.