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Астронет: Астрономическая картинка дня Вращение Юпитера http://variable-stars.ru/db/msg/1238099/eng |
Credit & Copyright: NASA,
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory,
Southwest Research Institute
Explanation:
What would it be like to coast by Jupiter and watch it rotate?
This was just the experience of the
New Horizons
spacecraft as it approached and flew by Jupiter in 2007.
Clicking on the image will bring up a
movie
of what the robotic spacecraft saw.
Visible above in the
extensive atmosphere of the Solar System's largest planet are
bands and belts of light and dark clouds, as well as
giant rotating storm systems seen as
ovals.
Other movies compiled by
New Horizons and
other passing spacecraft have captured the
clouds swirling and moving relative to themselves.
Jupiter
has a diameter of about eleven times that of our Earth, and rotates once in about
10 hours.
The robotic
New Horizons
spacecraft, launched four years ago last week,
continues to speed toward the outer
Solar System
and has
recently
passed the halfway point between Earth and Pluto.
New Horizons will reach Pluto in 2015.
Note:
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.