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December 20, 2021 01:15 am

NASA Releases New Photos of Jupiter - and a Recording of Its Moon that Sounds Like R2-D2

"As it seeks answers about the cosmos and what they mean for Earth's origins, NASA on Friday announced a slew of discoveries about Jupiter," reports the Washington Post "And scientists brought home an interstellar tune from the road." The Juno spacecraft is gathering data about the origin of the solar system's biggest planet — in which more than 1,300 Earths could fit. Among its recent findings are photos from inside the planet's ring, a map of its magnetic field, details of its atmosphere and a trippy soundtrack from a spacecraft's travels around one of its moons. But it's not exactly a song, or even perceptible to the human ear. The radio emissions Juno recorded are not what a person would hear if they went to Jupiter — space is a vacuum and does not carry soundwaves like air does on Earth. But the probe zooming through space captured the electric and magnetic emissions that scientists later converted into perceptible sound. Turns out, orbiting Ganymede, which is one of Jupiter's moons and the largest satellite in the solar system, kind of sounds like R2-D2. Launched in 2011, became the eighth spacecraft to ever reach Jupiter in 2016, "and the first to probe below the giant planet's thick gas cover. "It fought Jupiter's extreme temperatures and hazardous radiation to survey its north and south poles, chugging along despite a lack of sunshine on its solar panels."

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