Ride with Juno in front of Ganymede and Jupiter

Ride with Juno

The Juno spacecraft made its most recent flyby of the giant planet Jupiter on June 8, 2021. Shortly before its closest point to Jupiter – the 34th of the mission, or perijove 34 – Juno flew closer to the large moon of Jupiter Ganymede that any spacecraft has in over two decades. On July 14, NASA released the beautiful video above. It lets you follow the Juno spacecraft on this final sweep past Ganymede and Jupiter. The video is beautiful and evocative. Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio said in a statement:

Animation shows how beautiful deep space exploration can be. It’s 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.

The images for this time-lapse animation came from JunoCam, the visible light camera / telescope aboard the Juno spacecraft. NASA explained:

The 3:30 am animation begins with Juno approaching Ganymede. It passed within 645 miles (1,038 km) of Ganymede’s surface at a relative speed of 41,600 mph (67,000 km / h). The imagery shows several of the dark and light regions of the moon. The darker regions are believed to result from the sublimation of the ice in the surrounding void, leaving behind dark residue. The imagery also shows Tros Crater, which is among the largest and brightest crater scars in Ganymede.

It only takes 14 hours and 50 minutes for Juno to travel the 735,000 miles (1.18 million km) between Ganymede and Jupiter. The viewer is transported just 2,100 miles (3,400 km) above Jupiter’s dramatic cloud tops. At this point, Jupiter’s powerful gravity accelerated the spacecraft to nearly 130,000 mph (210,000 km / h) relative to the planet.

Among the Jovian atmospheric features that can be seen are the circumpolar cyclones at the North Pole and five of the gas giant’s pearl necklaces. These are eight massive storms rotating counterclockwise in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. They appear as white ovals.

Using the information Juno learned while studying Jupiter’s atmosphere, the animation team simulated the lightning that could be seen when we hover over the giant thunderstorms of Jupiter.

How they made the video

Citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt used composite images of Ganymede and Jupiter to give us the camera perspective. For Ganymede and Jupiter, NASA said:

The JunoCam images were projected orthographically 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.

Juno mission extended until 2025

NASA said that, as expected, Jupiter’s gravitational pull has now affected Juno’s orbit. The craft has been in a 53-day highly elliptical polar orbit since 2016. In other words, it has only passed the giant planet so often. Now, Jupiter’s strong gravity has reduced Juno’s orbit to 43 days.

The Juno mission was originally scheduled to end in July 2021. But in January of this year, NASA extended the mission. Juno will now continue to explore Jupiter until September 2025, or until the spacecraft’s end of life. NASA said on January 13, 2021:

This expansion tasks Juno with becoming an explorer of the entire Jovian system – Jupiter and its rings and moons – with multiple rendezvous scheduled for three of Jupiter’s most intriguing Galilean moons: Ganymede, Europe, and Io.

Jupiter’s next Juno flyby, the 35th of the mission, is scheduled for a few days, July 21, 2021.

Bottom line: A nice video showing the Juno spacecraft’s most recent flyby to Jupiter. During this flyby, Juno came closer to Jupiter Ganymede’s large moon than any spacecraft in two decades.

Via JPL