Juno delivers first Jupiter color image since entering orbit
- by Carmen Reese
- in Science
- — Jul 14, 2016
NASA just released the first color photo of Jupiter taken by the Juno spacecraft that entered orbit around the gas giant July 4.
During the approach, the camera and instruments were powered off as a precaution as Juno braved intense radiation.
The probe's visible-light camera, known as JunoCam, was switched on six days after it arrived at Jupiter.
Aside from being breathtaking, the photo also served as proof that the spacecraft's JunoCam had survived the journey and its first pass through what NASA described as Jupiter's "extreme radiation environment". "The first high-resolution images of the planet will be taken on August 27 when Juno makes its next close pass to Jupiter".
It's not the closest close-up of Jupiter, but it's the first view provided by NASA's Juno probe since it went into orbit around the giant planet on July 4.
Mission scientists also announce that onboard scientific equipment on Juno are still in good health despite Jupiter's massive and highly unsafe magnetic fields around the planet, that can cause intense radiation to fry up these instruments.
The closest Juno will get to the planet will be 2,600 miles, which is as far as NY is from Los Angeles, the Post says. While the images it will capture may be helpful to scientists, NASA said that it is not considered as one of the science instruments of the Juno mission. It's expected to produce unprecedented closeups of Jupiter's poles and cloud tops from as close as 2,600 miles. In the image along with Jupiter are Io, Europa, and Ganymede.
Juno is now cruising away from the planet, toward the more distant parts of a highly elliptical, 53-day orbit.
During these flybys, Juno will attempt to peek beneath the planet's clouds to study its auroras, magnetosphere, atmosphere, and structure.
A camera aboard the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has directly imaged a planet outside our solar system that is part of a solar system with three suns.
The Great Red Spot - a massive anti-cyclonic storm that has been raging for centuries - is the size of three Earths.
NASA engineers are busy downloading more pictures of Jupiter taken from the Juno space probe and uploading them to the space agency's website.
