When did you start researching the planets ?

I actually didn't begin until 1999, so it's only been four or five years......but it has long been a dream of mine. When I was a child, Mars came very close to the earth. This was back in 1953. With the small telescope I had at the time, the red planet looked like nothing more than a red bean. Even so, it made quite an impression on me. Still, when it came time to choose a major, I went with practicable physics instead of astronomy because I thought physics might provide me with a broader choice of jobs or career paths.
But my strong desire to study nature and the sky never waned, so I switched to geophysics. I was involved in researching the upper atmosphere after graduating from college, from 1970 to 1995. From '95 to '99 I researched auroras at the National Institute of Polar Research. Now I'm here - right where I've always wanted to be, doing exactly what I've always wanted to do.

When do you think that there will be some concrete evidence to help explain the physical phenomena on Jupiter ?

It will be good to finally be able to perform close-up observation of Jupiter. However, the powerful rays of the planet's radiation belt will greatly shorten the effective life of the observational equipment when it gets close to the planet, so I think it will take a very, very long time to learn everything there is to know. It is vital that we do all we can to further our knowledge and understanding of the great planet.
My main goals right now are to figure out why sodium travels away from Jupiter and how it goes so far, and exactly how gas emitted from the volcanoes of Io becomes Jupiter plasma. The two are linked and I can't help but think that finding the answers will reveal to us a great deal about the seemingly infinite space phenomena of our solar system.

As immense as Jupiter is, it's actually just a small part of a vast unknown
territory, isn't it ?

For the several billion years since the birth of the planets in our solar system, they have been illuminated by the sun and undergone slow, gradual change. When an astronaut first set foot on our moon, he left a footprint. That means that dust had been accumulating on the moon's surface all that time. I believe that by studying two extremes - a planet like Jupiter enveloped in a dense, enormous atmosphere, and our moon, where it seems virtually nothing happens - I can learn about "weather" in space.
No one knew of the existence of satellites until Galileo. I hope that the value of the research we're doing will also be realized several hundred years from now, and that people understand the knowledge belongs to each and every one of us.

Posted July 2004