ABSTRACT

The Juno spacecraft has now been operating at Jupiter for over three years and has changed in a profound way our understanding of the solar system’s largest planet. I will review some of the latest findings and describe how they may later our understanding fo the formation of the solar system—in particular the role of gas and small solids (pebbles) in enriching Jupiter’s envelope. I will also describe how we might get some of the same information for jUpiters around other stars from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

BIO
Jonathan Lunine is the David C. Duncan professor int he Physical Sciences and chair of the Astronomy Department at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. He is interested in how planets form and evolve, what processes maintain and establish habitability, and what kinds of exotic environments (methane lakes, etc.) might host a kind of chemistry sophisticated enough to be called "life". He is co-investigator on the Juno mission now in orbit at Jupiter, and on a spectrometer instrument for the Europa Clipper mission. He is on the science team for the James Webb Space Telescope, focusing on characterization of extrasolar planets and Kuiper Belt objects. Lunine has contributed to concept studies for a wide range of planetary and exoplanetary missions. Lunine is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has participated in or chaired a number of advisory and strategic planning committees for the Academy and for NASA.