Image: Juno captures Jovian approach

Image: Juno captures Jovian approach
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA's Juno spacecraft obtained this color view on June 21, 2016, at a distance of 6.8 million miles (10.9 million kilometers) from Jupiter. Juno will arrive at Jupiter on July 4.

As Juno makes its initial approach, the giant planet's four largest moons—Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto—are visible, and the alternating light and dark bands of the planet's clouds are just beginning to come into view.

Juno is approaching over Jupiter's north pole, affording the spacecraft a unique perspective on the Jupiter system. Previous missions that imaged Jupiter on approach saw the system from much lower latitudes, closer to the planet's equator.

The scene was captured by the mission's imaging camera, called JunoCam, which is designed to acquire high resolution views of features in Jupiter's atmosphere from very close to the planet.

Provided by NASA

Citation: Image: Juno captures Jovian approach (2016, June 28) retrieved 29 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2016-06-image-juno-captures-jovian-approach.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

NASA spacecraft barreling toward Jupiter for July 4 meetup

41 shares

Feedback to editors