NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
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NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
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Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
#2Aren'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...
Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
#3Aren'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.
Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
#4Aren'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...
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.
Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
#5Aren'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.
I have seen him speak several times. Does anyone take him seriously?
Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
#6Aren'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.
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 one person but another person fulfills the role?
Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
#7Aren'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...
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 first. It's fully defunded, if anyone hadn't heard).
Referring to their figs. 3–7, that distance figure is a hard limit—there's no possibility they have of getting closer to the comet than that.
(Keep in mind this is just one random interstellar comet; there are many, many others like it—there will be infinite opportunities to study one—and Avi Loeb is a proven clown who consistently misrepresents these things for drama).
[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21402 ("Intercepting 3I/ATLAS at Closest Approach to Jupiter with the Juno spacecraft")
Tangential remark: there was a similar proposal for the end-of-life of the Cassini orbiter—it didn't happen, but, there was enough delta-v for the theoretical option, of escaping Saturn and redirecting it to a second mission at Uranus[1]. It was also a dodgy idea, since the transfer time would have been ridiculous (~20 years)—it'd have been a long-shot for Cassini to have survived that long.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini_retirement#End_of_miss... ("Cassini retirement#End of mission options")
Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
#8Earlier 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…
Usually just means the position is sponsored by a donor (in this case Frank B. Baird Jr.). Salary and sometimes other funding gets paid via endowment set up by the named person or someone else on behalf of the named person.
Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
#9Aren'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...
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.
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 also don't think the interstellar object is an alien probe, I just was excited we got a chance at looking at an interstellar object, that may be totally unlike Solar System objects, and possibly far older. Crap?
Re: NASA's Juno mission leaves legacy of science at Jupiter
#10Earlier 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…
While I am not familiar with this particular instance, universities will often have a permanent professorship, or chair, with a specific focus that is named either after a renown expert in the field who taught at that institution, or after the person or organization who funded (endowed) the establishment of that position.
As for Loeb himself, I'm only passingly familiar with him in passing because of coverage since ‘Oumuamua, but it seems like he is a fairly typical asgtrophysicist who decided for some reason that he would launch a crusade declaring anything entering the Solar System from interstellar space must be an alien probe or spaceship.