The Gist

A Kamikaze Mission to Jupiter

Scientist Summer Ash explains the interstellar choreography of the Juno spacecraft mission and what we hope to learn from it.

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A one-fifth size scale model of NASA’s Juno spacecraft displayed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California on July 4, 2016.

Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Listen to Episode 536 of Slate’s The Gist:

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On The Gist, why it’s better to crash our spacecrafts than to litter the solar system with our earthly microbes. Summer Ash knows everything you didn’t know you wanted to know about the Juno space probe orbiting Jupiter. Ash is the Director of Outreach for Columbia University’s Department of Astronomy.

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