The Juno microwave experiment

This talk provides the scientific background for the NASA New Frontiers Mission, “Juno”. Juno is a solar powered polar orbiter around Jupiter. Juno is scheduled to be launched in August 2011. The goal of the Juno mission is to explore the origin and evolution of the planet Jupiter. Three main experimental objectives, during 32 orbits at the 5000 km perigee of Juno, are: 1) to determine Jupiter´s internal mass distribution by measuring gravity with Doppler tracking, 2) to determine the nature of its internal dynamo by measuring its magnetic fields with a magnetometer, and 3) to determine the deep composition and dynamics of the sub-cloud atmosphere around Jupiter, by measuring its thermal microwave emission. A total of seven instruments will be on-board. The focus of this talk will be on the Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument, which will measure the thermal microwave emission at six octave-spaced frequencies ranging from 0.6 to 22 GHz.