Jupiter (Planet) -- Photographs from space; Jupiter probes; Voyager Project
In addition to its spectroscopy of Jupiter, the Voyager instrument could
be used as a heat-measuring device to map the temperatures of both the
satellites and the atmosphere of Jupiter. Particularly interesting for
the satellites are measurements of the surface cooling and heating
rates, since these rates reveal the physical compactness of the surface,
easily distinguishing between rock and sand or dust.
The infrared instrument is a Michelson interferometer at the focus of a
gold-plated telescope of 51-centimeter aperture. The spectrum is not
obtained directly, by moving a prism or grating, but indirectly through
the interference effects of light of different wavelengths: hence its
name, an interferometer. The complex interference pattern generated by
the motion of one of the mirrors in the light path is transmitted to
Earth, where computer analysis is required to transform it into a
recognizable spectrum. The entire instrument, which has a mass of 20
kilograms, is called IRIS, for infrared interferometer spectrometer.
The development of the infrared system for Voyager posed many problems.
IRIS was designed to cover the optimum spectral region for studies of
the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. However, when it was decided in
1974 that an extended Voyager mission might also allow a visit to
Uranus, Hanel and his colleagues realized that their instrument had
serious deficiencies for investigation of that colder and more distant
planet, and they proposed that a modified IRIS (MIRIS) be substituted
for the original design. A crash program was authorized to develop MIRIS
in parallel with IRIS, and in early 1977, as launch approached, it
appeared that the improved instrument would be ready. Problems occurred
during testing, however, and for several weeks in June and July the
decision hung in the balance. Unfortunately, there simply was not enough
time to solve all the problems; both Voyagers were launched carrying the
original IRIS, and the final flight qualification of MIRIS came in
October, about six weeks after launch. With no other missions planned
beyond Saturn, no alternate use for MIRIS has been found; it remains “on
the shelf,” one of the rare cases where a technological gamble by NASA
did not pay off.
[Illustration: Lyle Broadfoot, ultraviolet spectrometer Principal
Investigator]
Ultraviolet Spectrometer
A second spectroscopic instrument on the Voyager scan platform examines
short-wave, or ultraviolet, radiation. The Principal Investigator for
the ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS) is A. Lyle Broadfoot of Kitt Peak
National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. Broadfoot’s expertise lies in
instrumentation for atmospheric research, and he was previously the
Principal Investigator for a similar ultraviolet instrument on the
Mariner 10 mission to Venus and Mercury. Associated with Broadfoot in
the Voyager investigation are fourteen other scientists from the United
States, Canada, and France.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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