How does the Juno mission of NASA help to understand the origin and evolution of the earth?

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Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Juno helps explain the Earth's origin by studying Jupiter, the oldest planet, whose water, core and magnetic field preserve the solar nebula's original conditions and test planet-formation models. Its gravity data revealed a dilute, fuzzy core, testing how scientists think all planets, Earth included, grew.

**Introduction**

NASA's Juno, launched in 2011, has orbited Jupiter since 4 July 2016. Jupiter was most likely the first planet to form and still holds the solar nebula's original gas, so it is a fossil record of the conditions in which the Earth was born.

**What Juno Measures at Jupiter**

SKETCH: flow | From Jupiter to Earth's Origin
- Juno probes Jupiter
- Water, core, field data
- Test formation models
- Solar system history
- Earth's origin

1. **Water and volatiles**: Its microwave radiometer estimated in 2020 that water makes up about 0.25 percent of equatorial molecules, showing where icy material condensed in the young nebula.
2. **A dilute core**: Gravity data revealed a large, fuzzy core rather than a compact rocky one, testing the core-accretion model by which all planets are thought to have grown.
3. **Magnetic dynamo**: The magnetometer mapped an irregular field with a Great Blue Spot, offering a second laboratory for the dynamo that generates Earth's own field.

**How This Explains the Earth's Origin and Evolution**

1. **Building blocks**: Jupiter's composition constrains the chemistry of the nebula from which Earth's rocks and gases condensed.
2. **Delivery of water**: Models such as the Grand Tack, in which a migrating Jupiter scattered water-rich asteroids inward, help explain Earth's oceans, and Juno's data constrain them.
3. **A habitable planet**: Flybys of Ganymede, Europa and Io show tidal heating and volcanism, clarifying how magnetic shielding and early volcanism shaped Earth's atmosphere.

**Conclusion**

Juno studies Jupiter, not the Earth, yet by reading the oldest planet's interior it tests the models that explain how the Earth formed, gained water and became habitable. Its findings strengthen comparative planetology.

How does the Juno mission of NASA help to understand the origin and evolution of the earth?

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