20-04-2017
One of the highlights of the 11th edition of EXPO FCT was undoubtedly the presence of Jared Espley, scientist at the "Planetary Magnetosphere Laboratory" at the NASA Goddard Space Center, who gave an interesting conference entitled "Exploring Jupiter and its Moons" organized in tghe framework of the partnership between the American Corner (USA Embassy) and FCT NOVA Library.
Jared Espley is one of the responsibles for the Juno spacecraft that was sent by NASA to Jupiter in 2011. During his talk, he referred to the various challenges engineering has to face when it sends a device like Juno to Jupiter. One of these major challenges was the energy needed to keep the Juno and its various equipment operational. The solution was found on solar panels with the size of a bus.
Missions such as that of the Juno allow us, more and more, to "have the basic ideas about planet formation", such as to understand the composition of Jupiter and its 4 moons (the satellites of Galileo). However, as Jared Espley warned, much is still unknown about Jupiter, as, what creates its magnetic field. So, according to the NASA engineer, "we have the basic ideas of how planets form but we do not know the details yet."
