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Credit & Copyright: NASA,
Juno,
SwRI,
MSSS,
Gerald Eichstadt;
Music:
Moonlight Sonata
(Ludwig van Beethoven)
Explanation:
Here comes Jupiter!
NASA's robotic spacecraft
Juno
is continuing on its 53-day,
highly-elongated orbits
around our Solar System's largest planet.
The featured video is from perijove 11, the eleventh time
Juno
has passed near Jupiter since it arrived in mid-2016.
This time-lapse, color-enhanced movie covers about four hours and morphs between
36 JunoCam images.
The video begins with Jupiter rising as
Juno
approaches from the north.
As Juno reaches its closest view -- from about 3,500 kilometers over Jupiter's cloud
tops -- the spacecraft captures the great planet in tremendous detail.
Juno passes light zones and dark
belt of clouds that circle the planet, as well as numerous swirling circular storms,
many of which are larger than
hurricanes on Earth.
After the perijove,
Jupiter recedes into the distance, now displaying the
unusual clouds that appear over Jupiter's south.
To get desired
science
data, Juno swoops so close to
Jupiter that its instruments may soon fail due to exposure to high levels of
radiation.
Because of this, in part, the
Juno mission is currently
schedule to
conclude in mid-2018,
at perijove 14, when the spacecraft will be directed
to dive into Jupiter's atmosphere and melt.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Jupiter
Publications with words: Jupiter
See also: