Juno gets up close and personal with Jupiter's Great Red Spot
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is one of its most iconic features. The giant storm, which has been raging in the atmosphere of the gas giant for at least hundreds of years, is larger than Earth and can be seen easily even with an amateur telescope. But despite its size and prominence, the Great Red Spot is a mystery that continues to intrigue planetary scientists. Now, NASA's Juno probe has returned the best ever images of the Great Red Spot, following its most recent close flyby of our solar system's largest planet July 10.
The pictures the probe returned are stunning. As it passed over the Great Red Spot at a height of 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers), Juno's imaging camera, JunoCam, snapped several apple core-shaped photos of the feature in optical light. But pretty pictures weren't Juno's only goal; all of the spacecraft's eight additional instruments recorded data during the flyby as well. Those instruments include a magnetometer, a radio and plasma wave sensor, a microwave radiometer, and an ultraviolet spectrograph. By combining the multi-wavelength data from these state-of-the-art instruments, scientists can create a more complete model of the storm than ever before.
"These highly-anticipated images of Jupiter's Great Red Spot are the 'perfect storm' of art and science. With data from Voyager, Galileo, New Horizons, Hubble and now Juno, we have a better understanding of the composition and evolution of this iconic feature," said Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, in a press release.
Also at Spaceflight Now and KQED. JunoCam Image Processing Gallery.
Previously: Juno to Image Jupiter's Great Red Spot on July 10th
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The Juno spacecraft will make a close approach to Jupiter's Great Red Spot on July 10th:
Just days after celebrating its first anniversary in Jupiter orbit, NASA's Juno spacecraft will fly directly over Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the gas giant's iconic, 10,000-mile-wide (16,000-kilometer-wide) storm. This will be humanity's first up-close and personal view of the gigantic feature -- a storm monitored since 1830 and possibly existing for more than 350 years.
[...] The data collection of the Great Red Spot is part of Juno's sixth science flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops. Perijove (the point at which an orbit comes closest to Jupiter's center) will be on Monday, July 10, at 6:55 p.m. PDT (9:55 p.m. EDT). At the time of perijove, Juno will be about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops. Eleven minutes and 33 seconds later, Juno will have covered another 24,713 miles (39,771 kilometers) and will be directly above the coiling crimson cloud tops of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The spacecraft will pass about 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) above the Giant Red Spot clouds. All eight of the spacecraft's instruments as well as its imager, JunoCam, will be on during the flyby.
The Great Red Spot was recently studied by the Gemini North telescope and the Subaru Telescope.
NASA has extended the Juno mission for 3 more years. It was previously scheduled to deorbit and collide with Jupiter in July 2018. JunoCam is expected to fail before the end of the mission due to radiation damage:
NASA has officially announced that its $1 billion Juno mission is getting a critical life extension to study planet Jupiter. Instead of being crashed into the planet's cloud tops next month, Juno will fly until at least July 2021, according to a press release issued on Thursday by the Southwest Research Institute, which operates the pinwheel-shaped, tennis-court-size robot.
Business Insider reported on Monday that Juno's mission would be extended. The probe has orbited Jupiter since July 2015, but engine trouble forced scientists to collect data about four times more slowly than they'd originally hoped. "Juno needs more time to gather our planned scientific measurements," Scott Bolton, the Juno mission's leader and a planetary scientist at the SwRI, told Gizmodo on Tuesday.
See also: The Mystery of Insane Lightning Storms on Jupiter Has Finally Been Solved
Prevalent lightning sferics at 600 megahertz near Jupiter's poles (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0156-5) (DX)
Discovery of rapid whistlers close to Jupiter implying lightning rates similar to those on Earth (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0442-z) (DX)
Related: JunoCam Works, First New Images From Jupiter Sent Back
Juno Captures Best Ever Images of Jupiter's Great Red Spot
Jupiter's Auroras Powered by Particles from Io
Depth of Jupiter's Great Red Spot Studied, and Two New Radiation Zones Found
Great Storms of Jupiter and Neptune Are Disappearing
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday July 17 2017, @02:56PM (3 children)
https://d2xkkdgjnsfvb0.cloudfront.net/Vault/Thumb?VaultID=10456&Interlaced=1&Mode=R&ResX=960&OutputFormat=jpg&Quality=90&t=1499971729 via J/S-laden https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing?source=junocam
I remember seeing a 3D fly-through of the surface of mars at the NASA museum which was trying to wow the viewer with how impressive the mountain ranges and canyons were. Then I noticed some smallprint that said "we've scaled the Z direction by a factor of 5" (or was it 10). I.e. the mountains and canyons weren't impressive, it was no better than fake.
I wish NASA would try to get people impressed with that which is real. Sure, hollywood's more pneumatic, and will look much more "impressive", but who knows - that might even be a good thing, it might teach people to be more critical of the garbage physics and super-reality that's being jetisoned at their retinas at unrealistic speed.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 17 2017, @06:32PM (2 children)
Not just slow old geezers: NASA's public outreach learns from Instagram filters and FB selective publishing...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 18 2017, @03:25PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:27PM
Ready for internet fame, as planets' good pictures crumble apart when you look close:
Jupiter's eye looks like it has glaucoma (and/or myxomatosis).
Saturn's beautiful rings are amazingly shallow.
Pluto has an icy-cold heart.
Venus's bright appearance is a hot toxic mess.