Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 39 posts

Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

#21

Post by [deleted] »

kristianc wrote: post #13
aruggirello wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was somewhat suspicious that a probe could perform such a feat, but the article mentioned Avi Loeb, an award winning Harvard scientist [1], the author of the proposal, even went as far as computing required trajectory, ignition etc. so I assumed he had all the necessary data, and it was possible. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Loeb I don't think considering his proposal might have damaged NASA's reputation. I…

Avi Loeb is a crank. He's a guy with a career largely behind him swinging for the fences for one big hit that secures his legacy.

[deleted]

Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

#23

Post by mritterhoff »

unkeen wrote: post #16

> the solar system’s undisputed heavyweight Now I feel the urge to dispute this!

It's an odd choice of words since 1. Most people know it's the largest and heaviest planet 2. They didn't specify planet but are still ignoring the sun, which is 1000x Jupiter's mass.

Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

#24

Post by ricksunny »

jfengel wrote: post #3
aruggirello wrote: post #2

Aren't NASA considering the proposal to rendez-vous with 3I/ATLAS (aka C/2025 N1 ATLAS)??? [1] 1: https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-probe-could-intercept-inte...

Nobody at NASA takes anything Avi Loeb says seriously. It also happens that NASA is too busy doing damage control to consider anything new. But even if they were, it won't be because Loeb suggested it.

>Nobody at NASA takes anything Avi Loeb says seriously.

source > bloviating

>But even if they were, it won't be because Loeb suggested it.

Wow, what an utter arbitrarily position-hedging comment

Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

#25

Post by JdeBP »

lucb1e wrote: post #6
jfengel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody at NASA takes anything Avi Loeb says seriously. It also happens that NASA is too busy doing damage control to consider anything new. But even if they were, it won't be because Loeb suggested it.

In case anyone else is wondering, it's this guy: "Since 2017, Loeb has argued that alien space craft may be in the Solar System [like] ʻOumuamua" What I don't understand on his Wikipedia page is this bit in the second sentence: "Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University". Does he work there under the alias "Frank B. Baird Jr." or what does this sentence mean? Or is the position called…

Frank B. Baird Jr. was the son of Frank B. Baird, of Buffalo New York, who died some time around 1947. His son, and Flora M. Baird, his widow, set up a charitable trust in his name which did things like donate to the Buffalo Museum of Science. The later Frank B. Baird Jr. Foundation made several donations to Harvard for scholarships and the like in the 1950s.

Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

#26

Post by ricksunny »

perihelions wrote: post #7
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are not, because the probe doesn't have anywhere near enough fuel to do this. I suggest stopping use of any news source you have that would print this crap.

You can read their paper here[0]. I agree it's very dodgy (and without even looking at that author's past). While the comet 3I/ATLAS approaches within 53 million km of Jupiter (0.3 au), all they can propose is, optimistically, to bring Juno to within half that distance–27 million km. Hardly seems worth the risks? And that'd end all of Juno's remaining Jupiter science (assuming the MAGA! FY26 budget doesn't get to it…

>Hardly seems worth the risks?

Juno's mission is at end-of-life at the proposal's starting point. So now tell me again about the risks.

Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

#27

Post by lucb1e »

JdeBP wrote: post #25
lucb1e wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone else is wondering, it's this guy: "Since 2017, Loeb has argued that alien space craft may be in the Solar System [like] ʻOumuamua" What I don't understand on his Wikipedia page is this bit in the second sentence: "Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University". Does he work there under the alias "Frank B. Baird Jr." or what does this sentence mean? Or is the position called…

Frank B. Baird Jr. was the son of Frank B. Baird, of Buffalo New York, who died some time around 1947. His son, and Flora M. Baird, his widow, set up a charitable trust in his name which did things like donate to the Buffalo Museum of Science. The later Frank B. Baird Jr. Foundation made several donations to Harvard for scholarships and the like in the 1950s.

[flagged]

Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

#28

Post by roughly »

This is a fantastic recap of everything Juno discovered and the value of this kind of mission - there’s multiple discoveries in here that are at odds with our theoretical understanding of planetary formation, physics, and chemistry that can inform new science moving forward. One that stuck out to me in particular was that Jupiter’s massive magnetic field isn’t generated by a metallic core like we expected, but rather Hydrogen under pressures sufficient to tear free electrons.

Combine that with the fact that the Juno probe has now more than doubled its expected life, and this whole mission serves as as good of an argument for continuing to fund NASA as you’re going to see.

Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

#29

Post by andrekandre »

kristianc wrote: post #13
aruggirello wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was somewhat suspicious that a probe could perform such a feat, but the article mentioned Avi Loeb, an award winning Harvard scientist [1], the author of the proposal, even went as far as computing required trajectory, ignition etc. so I assumed he had all the necessary data, and it was possible. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Loeb I don't think considering his proposal might have damaged NASA's reputation. I…

Avi Loeb is a crank. He's a guy with a career largely behind him swinging for the fences for one big hit that secures his legacy.

its really interesting to see once-professional/respectable people turn into cranks over time... i wonder if they were always that way or just lost their minds, or have they just become cynics and just grift their way to money...?

Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter

#30

Post by [deleted] »

JdeBP wrote: post #25
lucb1e wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone else is wondering, it's this guy: "Since 2017, Loeb has argued that alien space craft may be in the Solar System [like] ʻOumuamua" What I don't understand on his Wikipedia page is this bit in the second sentence: "Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University". Does he work there under the alias "Frank B. Baird Jr." or what does this sentence mean? Or is the position called…

Frank B. Baird Jr. was the son of Frank B. Baird, of Buffalo New York, who died some time around 1947. His son, and Flora M. Baird, his widow, set up a charitable trust in his name which did things like donate to the Buffalo Museum of Science. The later Frank B. Baird Jr. Foundation made several donations to Harvard for scholarships and the like in the 1950s.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN