Juno sends first view of Jupiter and its moons

Well that didn’t take long. The Juno spacecraft sent back the first image of Jupiter this week.

The image shows atmospheric features on Jupiter, including the famous Great Red Spot, and three of the massive planet’s four largest moons — Io, Europa and Ganymede, from left to right in the image.

The probe shot the photo Sunday, when the spacecraft was 2.7 million miles from Jupiter on the outbound leg of its initial orbit.

Juno arrived at Jupiter on July 4 and is now in orbit around the planet. A camera aboard Juno, nicknamed the JunoCam, took the image. JunoCam is a color, visible-light camera designed to take remarkable pictures of Jupiter’s poles and cloud tops, NASA said.

Better, higher-resolution images will be sent in the weeks and months ahead. The first high-resolution images of the planet will be taken August 27 when Juno makes its next close pass to Jupiter, said Candy Hansen, Juno co-investigator from the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson… see more

source: usatoday

Tags: Juno Probe, NASA, Science

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