Jupiter Unmasked !

The Canberra Deep Space Communication Centre will be the first place on Earth to receive transmissions from NASA's  "Juno  " space probe when it attempts to orbit the mysterious planet we call Jupiter.    It is thought that Jupiter was the first planet to emerge from the great cloud of dust created by the "big bang " and its gravity was so huge that nothing escaped.   As a result, Jupiter is ringed by dense "clouds "of matter and we have no idea of what lurks below !

It is hoped that Juno will approach as closely as 4,100 kilometres and make thirty-seven orbits. It will burn thirty-four percent of its fuel to get into position and all its instruments will be streaming back atmospheric, gravitational, magnetic, radiation and structural readings - and it will take forty-eight minutes for these transmissions to reach earth because of the distance involved.

Science  has been mystified because Jupiter breaks all the rules.   There is no logical explanation as to why its gravity is so immense and it seems likely that it simply attracted every morsel of matter and that the "clouds "that surround its surface are this matter solidified.    The conjecture of what its surface may contain could hold the explanation of how the universe evolved.

Human kinds exploration of space commenced just after the middle of the twentieth century when we developed rockets powerful enough to evade gravity.   We have made great strides since those early days when rocketry had military objectives.   Many nations share the International Space Station and world communications rely on the satellites that dot the skies above.  Telescopes in space see an almost endless vista of stars, but what we know is infinitesimal in relation to what the universe has to offer.

Planet Earth has been fruitful to the human race.   We started as nomadic tribes of hunter/gatherers and centuries passed with incremental progress.  When we started to farm we put down roots and bit by bit we developed tools to increase our capacity to create an adequate food supply.  With each  tribe competing for space on what seems to be a crowded planet, the tempo has quickened and today there are seven billion of us.

By the middle of this present century we will probably number ten billion and planet Earth will be bursting at the seams.  It seems inevitable that just as the people of Europe developed ships and set off across the oceans to find new lands, we will seek to establish colonies on planets that form part of the universe.   It is quite possible that beneath those ever present clouds on Jupiter a warm world exists that may be suitable for human habitation.

So far, the best human kind has been able to manage is to set foot on our moon, but there are tentative plans for a colony on Mars in the decades ahead.   We may need to mine other worlds as we exhaust the minerals here on Earth and space exploration is coming within our grasp as our knowledge grows - and our ability to build bigger rockets increases exponentially.

It is inevitable that Australia will be an integral part of world space adventures.   We occupy an important land mass that will be essential to sending and receiving contact with space missions of the future.   Just as Juno will be in world contact with that Canberra Deep Space Tracking station to deliver data from Jupiter, other Australian stations will join the world array when a serious colony attempt gets under way.

Now all the lands of the Earth have been discovered and explored, the next search for the Holy Grail will certainly extend to the stars !