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Flight over Ganymede. Credit: NASA
The probe moved closer to Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, than any other spacecraft in more than two decades, offering spectacular glimpses of the icy orb and gas giant.
On June 7, 2021, NASA’s Juno spacecraft moved closer to Jupiter’s ice-encrusted moon Ganymede than any other spacecraft in more than two decades. Less than a day later, Juno made its 34th flyby of Jupiter, flying its choppy atmosphere from pole to pole in less than three hours. Using the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager, the mission team set up this animation to provide a “captain of the ship” perspective of every flyby.
“The animation shows how magnificent deep space exploration can be,” said Scott Bolton, senior researcher at Juno at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “Animation is a way for people to imagine exploring our solar system firsthand seeing what it would be like to orbit Jupiter and fly over one of its icy moons. Today, as we approach the exciting prospect of humans visiting space orbiting Earth, it propels our imaginations decades into the future, when humans will visit the alien worlds of our solar system.
On June 7, 2021, NASA’s Juno spacecraft moved closer to Jupiter’s ice-encrusted moon Ganymede than any other spacecraft in more than two decades. Less than a day later, Juno made its 34th flyby of Jupiter. This animation provides a “captain of the ship” point of view of each flyby. For both worlds, the JunoCam images were spelled out onto a digital sphere and used to create the hover animation. Synthetic frames have been added to provide approach and departure views for Ganymede and Jupiter. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS
The 3:30 hour animation begins with Juno approaching Ganymede, passing within 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) of the surface at a relative speed of 41,600 mph (67,000 km / h). The imagery shows several of the moon’s dark and light regions (the darker regions would result from the sublimation of ice into the surrounding void, leaving dark residue behind) as well as Tros Crater, which is one of the Ganymede’s largest and brightest crater scars.
It only takes 14 hours and 50 minutes for Juno to travel the 735,000 miles (1.18 million kilometers) between Ganymede and Jupiter, and the viewer is transported just 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) above the peaks. spectacular clouds of Jupiter. At this point, Jupiter’s powerful gravity accelerated the spacecraft to nearly 130,000 mph (210,000 km / h) relative to the planet.
Some of the Jovian atmospheric features that can be seen include the circumpolar cyclones at the north pole and five of the gas giant’s “pearl chains” – eight massive storms rotating counterclockwise in the hemisphere. south which appear as white ovals. Using the information Juno learned while studying Jupiter’s atmosphere, the animation team simulated the lightning that could be seen as we pass over the giant thunderstorms of Jupiter.
The camera perspective for this time-lapse animation was generated by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt, using composite images of Ganymede and Jupiter. For both worlds, the JunoCam images were spelled out onto a digital sphere and used to create the hover animation. Synthetic frames have been added to provide approach and departure views for Ganymede and Jupiter.
As expected, the gravitational pull of the giant moon affected Juno’s orbit, causing its orbital period to be reduced from 53 days to 43 days. The next flyby of Jupiter, the 35th of the mission, is scheduled for July 21.
Learn more about the mission
JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., Manages the Juno mission for Principal Investigator Scott J. Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to lead the agency’s science mission to Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.
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