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Iapetus: A View from the Top
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Iapetus: A View from the Top |
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This oblique view of Saturn's moon Iapetus from high latitude shows how the dark, heavily cratered terrain of Cassini Regio transitions to a bright, icy terrain at high latitudes. In this mosaic of two high resolution images taken during Cassini's New Year's Eve 2004 flyby of Iapetus, the direction toward the north pole is approximately 15 degrees below the horizontal on the right. At the equator terrains are uniformly covered with a dark mantle of material that has a reflectivity of about 4 percent. At latitudes toward the pole of about 40 degrees, the dark deposits become patchy and diffuse as the surface transitions to a much brighter, icy terrain near the pole. The brightest icy materials exhibit visual reflectivity over 60 percent. Superimposed on the bright terrain is a subtle, ghostly pattern of crudely parallel, north-south trending wispy streaks. The streaks, which were discovered during this flyby of Iapetus, are typically a few kilometers wide and sometimes tens of kilometers long. Their appearance and orientation may be connected with the emplacement of dark materials that cover Cassini Regio. The dark materials might represent the gradual accumulation of dark debris falling from space, or alternatively, may represent fallout from plume-style eruptions that may have accompanied the formation of Iapetus's enigmatic equatorial ridge (see PIA 06166). Also seen in this mosaic are conspicuous, north-facing bright crater walls. An example can be seen in the upper left where the bright, 4-kilometer-high (2.5 miles) walls of a 70 kilometer (44 mile) central-peak crater lies. The bright crater walls are often higher in brightness than the corresponding south-facing walls of the same crater. They are vaguely reminiscent of bright north-facing crater walls that were discovered by NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft in craters near the poles of the Jovian satellites Callisto and Ganymede. In the case of the Jovian satellites, cold-trapping of frosts on north-facing slopes and sublimation of ices from south-facing slopes are thought to produce the north-south asymmetries in crater wall brightness. However, the occurrence of some young-appearing craters on Iapetus that have bright north-facing and dark south-facing slopes, and the pattern of streaks near the north pole of Iapetus suggests that another mechanism may be responsible for the crater wall brightness asymmetries on Iapetus. One possibility is that the south-facing slopes may be stained by the same process that emplaced the low brightness coating throughout the region. In this case, the north-pointing scarps might be bright because they face away and are shielded from the putative falling spray of dark materials. Bright south-facing slopes would exist primarily on young craters that have not been exposed to the darkening agent long enough to be stained. The image was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Dec. 31, 2004, at a distance of, about 123,370 kilometers (76,658 miles) from Iapetus and at a Sun-Iapetus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 93 degrees. Resolution achieved in the original image was 732 meters (2,401 feet) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For images visit the Cassini imaging team home page http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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January 7, 2005 |
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Giant Landslide on Iapetus
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Giant Landslide on Iapetus |
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A spectacular landslide within the low-brightness region of Iapetus's surface known as Cassini Regio is visible in this image from Cassini. Iapetus is one of the moons of Saturn. The landslide material appears to have collapsed from a scarp 15 kilometers high (9 miles) that forms the rim of an ancient 600 kilometer (375 mile) impact basin. Unconsolidated rubble from the landslide extends halfway across a conspicuous, 120-kilometer diameter (75-mile) flat-floored impact crater that lies just inside the basin scarp. Landslides are common geological phenomena on many planetary bodies, including Earth and Mars. The appearance of this landslide on an icy satellite with low-brightness cratered terrain is reminiscent of landslide features that were observed during NASA's Galileo mission on the Jovian satellite Callisto. The fact that the Iapetus landslide traveled many kilometers from the basin scarp could indicate that the surface material is very fine-grained, and perhaps was fluffed by mechanical forces that allowed the landslide debris to flow extended distances. In this view, north is to the left of the picture and solar illumination is from the bottom of the frame. The image was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Dec. 31, 2004, at a distance of about 123,400 kilometers (76,677 miles) from Iapetus and at a Sun-Iapetus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 78 degrees. Resolution achieved in the original image was 740 meters (2,428 feet) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For images visit the Cassini imaging team home page http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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January 7, 2005 |
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The Adventure Ahead
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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This majestic view of Saturn captures several phenomena of interest to scientists working on the Cassini mission. The planet's nighttime atmosphere looms ahead -- an excellent place to search for storms and lightning. Saturn's shadow stretches across the rings, which will over the next four years receive their most thorough examination since Galileo discovered them in 1610. And barely visible near lower right just inside the F ring, is the small shepherd moon Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across). Researchers will explore the many moons of Saturn, including special ones like Prometheus that help maintain some of the rings and gaps in this complex and dynamic system. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on Oct. 29, 2004, at a distance of about 940,000 kilometers (584,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 52 kilometers (33 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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A four-panel frame shows a section of Jupiter's north equatorial belt viewed by NASA's Cassini spacecraft at four different wavelengths, and a separate reference frame shows the location of the belt on the planet. A fascinating aspect of the images in the four-panel frame is the small bright spot in the center of each. The images come from different layers of the atmosphere, so the spot appears to be a storm penetrating upward through several layers. This may in fact be a `monster' thunderstorm, penetrating all the way into the stratosphere, as do some summer thunderstorms in the midwestern United States. These images were taken on Nov. 27, 2000, at a resolution of 192 kilometers (119 miles) per pixel. They have been contrast-enhanced to highlight features in the atmosphere. The top panel of the four-panel frame is an image taken in a near-infrared wavelength at which the gases in Jupiter's atmosphere are relatively non-absorbing. Sunlight can penetrate deeply into the atmosphere at this wavelength and be reflected back out, providing a view of an underlying region of the atmosphere, the lower troposphere. The second panel was taken in the blue portion of wavelengths detected by the human eye. At these wavelengths, gases in the atmosphere scatter a modest amount of sunlight, so the clouds we see tend to be at somewhat higher altitudes than in the top panel. The third panel shows near-infrared reflected sunlight at a wavelength where the gas methane, an important constituent of Jupiter's atmosphere, absorbs strongly. Dark places are regions without high-level clouds and consequently large amounts of methane accessible to sunlight. Bright regions are locations with high clouds in the upper troposphere shielding the methane below. The bottom panel was taken in the ultraviolet. At these very short wavelengths, the clear atmosphere scatters sunlight, and hazes in the stratosphere, above the troposphere, absorb sunlight. That makes it difficult to see into lower layers at all. The bright regions are generally free of high stratospheric hazes. A small bright spot is visible near the center of each panel. Similar spots have been imaged in turbulent regions by the Galileo spacecraft, and they appear to be very energetic convective storms that move heat from the interior of Jupiter to higher altitudes. These storms are expected to penetrate to great heights, and so it is not surprising to see the storm in the first three images, which probe atmospheric altitudes from the lower to the upper troposphere. What is surprising is the appearance of the spot in the ultraviolet image. Higher resolution, time-lapse images to be captured by Cassini in coming weeks will shed more light on these spectacular features. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office, of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona For higher resolution, click here. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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Jupiter's four largest satellites, including Io, the golden ornament in front of Jupiter in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, have fascinated Earthlings ever since Galileo Galilei discovered them in 1610 in one of his first astronomical uses of the telescope. Images from Cassini that will be released over the next several days capture each of the four Galilean satellites in their orbits around the giant planet. This true-color composite frame, made from narrow angle images taken on Dec. 12, 2000, captures Io and its shadow in transit against the disk of Jupiter. The distance of the spacecraft from Jupiter was 19.5 million kilometers (12.1 million miles). The image scale is 117 kilometers (73 miles) per pixel. The entire body of Io, about the size of Earth's Moon, is periodically flexed as it speeds around Jupiter and feels, as a result of its non-circular orbit, the periodically changing gravitational pull of the planet. The heat arising in Io's interior from this continual flexure makes it the most volcanically active body in the solar system, with more than 100 active volcanoes. The white and reddish colors on its surface are due to the presence of different sulfurous materials. The black areas are silicate rocks. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona For higher resolution, click here. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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This image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 1, 2000, shows details of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and other features that were not visible in images taken earlier, when Cassini was farther from Jupiter. The picture is a color composite, with enhanced contrast, taken from a distance of 28.6 million kilometers (17.8 million miles). It has a resolution of 170 kilometers (106 miles) per pixel. Jupiter's closest large moon, Io, is visible at left. The edges of the Red Spot are cloudier with ammonia haze than the spot's center is. The filamentary structure in the center appears to spiral outward toward the edge. NASA's Galileo spacecraft has previously observed the outer edges of the Red Spot to be rotating rapidly counterclockwise, while the inner portion was rotating weakly in the opposite direction. Whether the same is true now will be answered as Cassini gets closer to Jupiter and interior cloud features become sharper. Cassini will make its closest approach to Jupiter, at a distance of about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles), on Dec. 30, 2000. The Red Spot region has changed in one notable way over the years: In images from NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft, the area surrounding the Red Spot is dark, indicating relatively cloud-free conditions. Now, some bright white ammonia clouds have filled in the clearings. This appears to be part of a general brightening of Jupiter's cloud features during the past two decades. Jupiter has four large moons and an array of tiny ones. In this picture, Io is visible. The white and reddish colors on Io's surface are due to the presence of different sulfurous materials while the black areas are due to silicate rocks. Like the other large moons, Io always keeps the same hemisphere facing Jupiter, called the sub-Jupiter hemisphere. The opposite side, much of which we see here, is the anti-Jupiter hemisphere. Io has more than 100 active volcanoes spewing very hot lava and giant plumes of gas and dust. Its biggest plume, Pele, is near the bottom left edge of Io's disk as seen here. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. For higher resolution, click here. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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Jupiter Lightning Storms, Day and Night January 23, 2001 Images taken of Jupiter¿s day and night sides by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Jan. 1, 2001 show that storms visible on the day side are the sources of visible lightning when viewed on the night side. The two day-side occurrences of high clouds, in the upper and lower parts of the image, are coincident with lightning storms seen on the dark side. The storms occur at 34.5 degrees and 23.5 degrees North latitude, within one degree of the latitudes at which similar lightning features were detected by the Galileo spacecraft. The storms' longitudinal separation changes from one image to the next because the winds carrying them blow at different speeds at the two latitudes. The images have been enhanced in contrast. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona For higher resolution, click here. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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The solar system's largest moon, Ganymede, is captured here alongside the planet Jupiter in a color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 3, 2000. Ganymede is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Both Ganymede and Titan have greater surface area than the entire Eurasian continent on our planet. Cassini was 26.5 million kilometers (16.5 million miles) from Ganymede when this image was taken. The smallest visible features are about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) across. The bright area near the south (bottom) of Ganymede is Osiris, a large, relatively new crater surrounded by bright icy material ejected by the impact which created it. Elsewhere, Ganymede displays dark terrains that NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft have shown to be old and heavily cratered. The brighter terrains are younger and laced by grooves. Various kinds of grooved terrains have been seen on many icy moons in the solar system. These are believed to be the surface expressions of warm, pristine, water-rich materials that moved to the surface and froze. Ganymede has proven to be a fascinating world, the only moon known to have a magnetosphere, or magnetic environment, produced by a convecting metal core. The interaction of Ganymede's and Jupiter's magnetospheres may produce dazzling variations in the auroral glows in Ganymede's tenuous atmosphere of oxygen. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona For higher resolution, click here. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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This color image of Jupiter was taken by the camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft when it was 81.3 million kilometers (50.5 million miles) from the planet. It is composed of images taken in the blue, green, and red regions of the spectrum and is therefore close to the true color of Jupiter that one would see through an Earth-based telescope. The image is remarkably similar to images taken by NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft more than 21 years ago, illustrating the stability of Jupiter's weather patterns. The parallel dark and bright bands and many other large-scale features are quasi-permanent structures that survive despite the intense small-scale activity ongoing in the atmosphere. The longevity of the large-scale features is an intrinsic property of the atmospheric flows on a gaseous planet such as Jupiter, with no solid surface. Smaller features, such as those in the dark bands north and south of the equator, are observed to form and disappear in a few days. Everything visible on the planet is a cloud. Unlike Earth, where only water condenses to form clouds, Jupiter has several cloud-forming substances in its atmosphere. The updrafts and downdrafts bring different mixtures of these substances up from below, leading to clouds of different colors. The bluish features just north of the equator are regions of reduced cloud cover, similar to the place where the Galileo atmospheric probe entered in 1995. They are called "hot spots" because the reduced cloud cover allows heat to escape from warmer, deeper levels in the atmosphere. Jupiter's moon Europa is seen at the right, casting a shadow on the planet. Scientists believe Europa holds promise of a liquid ocean beneath its surface. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, (PIA02972) For higher resolution, click here. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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One moment in an ancient, orbital dance is caught in this color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 7, 2000, just as two of Jupiter's four major moons, Europa and Callisto, were nearly perfectly aligned with each other and the center of the planet. The distances are deceiving. Europa, seen against Jupiter, is 600,000 kilometers (370,000 miles) above the planet's cloud tops. Callisto, at lower left, is nearly three times that distance from the cloud tops. Europa is a bit smaller than Earth's Moon and has one of the brightest surfaces in the solar system. Callisto is 50 percent bigger -- roughly the size of Saturn's largest satellite, Titan -- and three times darker than Europa. Its brightness had to be enhanced in this picture, relative Europa's and Jupiter's, in order for Callisto to be seen in this image. Europa and Callisto have had very different geologic histories but share some surprising similarities, such as surfaces rich in ice. Callisto has apparently not undergone major internal compositional stratification, but Europa's interior has differentiated into a rocky core and an outer layer of nearly pure ice. Callisto's ancient surface is completely covered by large impact craters: The brightest features seen on Callisto in this image were discovered by the Voyager spacecraft in 1979 to be bright craters, like those on our Moon. In contrast, Europa's young surface is covered by a wild tapestry of ridges, chaotic terrain and only a handful of large craters. Recent data from the magnetometer carried by the Galileo spacecraft, which has been in orbit around Jupiter since 1995, indicate the presence of conducting fluid, most likely salty water, inside both Callisto and Europa. Scientists are eager to discover whether the surface of Saturn's Titan resembles that of Callisto or Europa, or whether it is entirely different, when Cassini finally reaches its destination in 2004. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona For higher resolution, click here. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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Images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft using three different filters reveal cloud structures and movements at different depths in the atmosphere around Jupiter's south pole. Cassini's cameras come equipped with filters that sample three wavelengths where methane gas absorbs light. These are in the red at 619 nanometer (nm) wavelength and in the near-infrared at 727 nm and 890 nm. Absorption in the 619 nm filter is weak. It is stronger in the 727 nm band and very strong in the 890 nm band where 90 percent of the light is absorbed by methane gas. Light in the weakest band can penetrate the deepest into Jupiter's atmosphere. It is sensitive to the amount of cloud and haze down to the pressure of the water cloud, which lies at a depth where pressure is about 6 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level on the Earth). Light in the strongest methane band is absorbed at high altitude and is sensitive only to the ammonia cloud level and higher (pressures less than about one-half of Earth's atmospheric pressure) and the middle methane band is sensitive to the ammonia and ammonium hydrosulfide cloud layers as deep as two times Earth's atmospheric pressure. The images shown here demonstrate the power of these filters in studies of cloud stratigraphy. The images cover latitudes from about 15 degrees north at the top down to the southern polar region at the bottom. The top two images are ratios, the image in the methane filter divided by the image at a nearby wavelength outside the methane band. Using ratios emphasizes where contrast is due to methane absorption and not to other factors, such as the absorptive properties of the cloud particles, which influence contrast at all wavelengths. The most prominent feature seen in all three filters is the polar stratospheric haze that makes Jupiter bright near the pole. The equatorial band is also very bright in the strong 890-nm image and to a lesser extent in the 727 band (middle image) but is subdued in the weak 619-nm image at the top. These are high, thin, haze layers that are nearly transparent at wavelengths outside the methane absorption bands. Another prominent feature is the Great Red Spot. About a third of it appears at the right-hand edge of the frame. It is a bright feature in methane absorption because it has extensive cloud cover reaching to high altitude. A wisp of high thin cloud can be seen trailing off its western rim in the middle and lowest images. Features mentioned above have been seen from ground-based telescopes, from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and from NASA's Galileo spacecraft. This is the first high-resolution image in all three methane bands, and a comparison of all three reveals some interesting features. Chief among these is the very dark patch seen in the top (weak methane) image near the top-middle of the frame. It is almost invisible in the bottom image and it appears to be composed of strands of bright clouds in the middle image. This is a region similar to the hot spot, where the Galileo Probe entered Jupiter's atmosphere in 1995. These images indicate that cloud cover is present at the higher altitudes but absent from the lower altitudes. This is also what the Galileo Probe found when it entered Jupiter's atmosphere. To the northwest (above and to the left) of the dark feature is a small cloud that is bright in the 619-nm (top) image but has no contrast at the other wavelengths. This is the signature expected for a thick water cloud. Another feature seen only in the weak-methane (top image) ratio is a dark ring near the center of the image. This feature is probably a counter-clockwise rotating, upwelling core surrounded by a sinking perimeter with diminished cloudiness. The fact that it is seen only in the weak methane ratio indicates the effects of a lower-level circulation that does not penetrated to the upper ammonia cloud level and may be confined to the deeper water cloud. The opposite behavior is evident in an oval storm that appears dark in the middle and bottom images but is absent in the weak, 619-nm image. It is located to the southwest of the Great Red Spot. Further to the west at slightly more northerly latitudes are a series of small spots that are dark at all wavelengths. These and a myriad of other contrast features at many latitudes reveal much about Jupiter's complicated cloud structure and meteorology. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona For higher resolution, click here. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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Download the free RealPlayer 8 Basic View RealPlayer video in its own window Inner Radiation Belts of Jupiter February 27, 2002 Details in radiation belts close to Jupiter are mapped from measurements that NASA's Cassini spacecraft made of radio emission from high-energy electrons moving at nearly the speed of light within the belts. The three views show the belts at different points in Jupiter's 10-hour rotation. A picture of Jupiter is superimposed to show the size of the belts relative to the planet. Cassini's radar instrument, operating in a listen-only mode, measured the strength of microwave radio emissions at a frequency of 13.8 gigahertz (13.8 billion cycles per second or 2.2 centimeter wavelength). The results indicate the region near Jupiter is one of the harshest radiation environments in the solar system. From Earth-based radio telescopes, the telltale radio emissions would be swamped out by heat-generated radio emissions from Jupiter's atmosphere, but Cassini was close enough to Jupiter in January 2001 to differentiate between the emissions from the radiation belts and those from the atmosphere. The belts appear to wobble as the planet turns because they are controlled by Jupiter's magnetic field, which is tilted in relation to the planet's poles. For more information about the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft and its observations of Jupiter, see the Cassini home page, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL More information about the Cassini and Galileo joint observations of the Jupiter system is available online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo and Cassini missions for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. For higher resolution, click here. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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Auroral "Footprints" of Jupiter's Moons February 27, 2002 A drawing illustrates how flows of electrons steered by Jupiter's magnetic field connect three of Jupiter's large moons with the upper atmosphere near Jupiter's north and south poles. The currents stimulate ultraviolet aurora glows in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. Observations with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, coordinated with the late 2000 flyby of Jupiter by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, captured those auroral footprints for the moons Io (left), Europa (right) and Ganymede (center). In the illustration, Jupiter's magnetic field lines are presented in blue, the moons' orbital paths around Jupiter in yellow. Pink loops from each of the moons to Jupiter's poles depict the flux tubes that are the paths of powerful electric currents. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science. Credit: NASA/John Spencer, Lowell Observatory and John Clarke, Boston University More information about the Cassini and Galileo joint observations of the Jupiter system is available online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo and Cassini missions for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. |
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Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
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Jupiter's Magnetosphere Made Visible February 27, 2002 The vast magnetosphere of charged particles whirling around Jupiter, normally invisible, can be imaged by a new type of instrument aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft and is seen here. Three features are sketched in for context: a black circle showing the size of Jupiter, lines of Jupiter's magnetic field, and a cross-section of the Io torus, a doughnut-shaped ring of charged particles that originate from volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io and circle Jupiter at about the orbit of Io. Jupiter's magnetosphere is the largest object in the solar system. If it glowed in wavelengths visible to the eye, it would appear two to three times the size of the Sun or Moon to viewers on Earth. Cassini's ion and neutral camera detects neutral atoms expelled from the magnetosphere, deriving information about their source. This image was taken shortly after Cassini's closest approach to Jupiter, about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) from the planet on Dec. 30, 2000. For more information about the Saturn-bound spacecraft and its observations of Jupiter, see the Cassini home page, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory More information about the Cassini and Galileo joint observations of the Jupiter system is available online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo and Cassini missions for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. For higher resolution, click here. |
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Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
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This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. |
| Full Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. For the other maps see PIA07782 and PIA07784. (Related thumbnail images available here.) These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze (such as the whitish material in the south polar map -- see PIA07784). Pixels in the rectangular map cover equal increments of planetocentric latitude (which is measured relative to the center of the planet) and longitude, and extend to 180 degrees of latitude and 360 degrees of longitude. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2006 |
|
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
…
| Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. |
| Full Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. For the other maps see PIA07782 and PIA07784. (Related thumbnail images available here.) These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze (such as the whitish material in the south polar map -- see PIA07784). Pixels in the rectangular map cover equal increments of planetocentric latitude (which is measured relative to the center of the planet) and longitude, and extend to 180 degrees of latitude and 360 degrees of longitude. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2006 |
|
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
…
| Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. |
| Full Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. For the other maps see PIA07783 and PIA07784.(Related thumbnail images available here.) These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze (such as the whitish material in the south polar map--see PIA07784). Pixels in the rectangular map cover equal increments of planetocentric latitude (which is measured relative to the center of the planet) and longitude, and extend to 180 degrees of latitude and 360 degrees of longitude. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2006 |
|
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
…
| Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. |
| Full Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. For the other maps see PIA07783 and PIA07784. (Related thumbnail images available here.) These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze (such as the whitish material in the south polar map--see PIA07784). Pixels in the rectangular map cover equal increments of planetocentric latitude (which is measured relative to the center of the planet) and longitude, and extend to 180 degrees of latitude and 360 degrees of longitude. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2006 |
|
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
…
| Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. |
| Full Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. For the other maps see PIA07783 and PIA07784. (Related thumbnail images available here.) These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze (such as the whitish material in the south polar map--see PIA07784). Pixels in the rectangular map cover equal increments of planetocentric latitude (which is measured relative to the center of the planet) and longitude, and extend to 180 degrees of latitude and 360 degrees of longitude. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2006 |
|
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
…
| Description |
These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. |
| Full Description |
These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced, the smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. For other maps see PIA07782 and PIA07783. (Related thumbnail images available here.) The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions shown here are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze. The round maps are polar stereographic projections that show the north or south pole in the center of the map and the equator at the edge. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2006 |
|
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
…
| Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. |
| Full Description |
This map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter. For the other maps see PIA07782 and PIA07784. (Related thumbnail images available here.) These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze (such as the whitish material in the south polar map -- see PIA07784). Pixels in the rectangular map cover equal increments of planetocentric latitude (which is measured relative to the center of the planet) and longitude, and extend to 180 degrees of latitude and 360 degrees of longitude. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2006 |
|
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
…
| Description |
These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. |
| Full Description |
These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced, the smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. For other maps see PIA07782 and PIA07783. (Related thumbnail images available here.) The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions shown here are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze. The round maps are polar stereographic projections that show the north or south pole in the center of the map and the equator at the edge. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2006 |
|
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
…
| Description |
These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. |
| Full Description |
These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced, the smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. For other maps see PIA07782 and PIA07783. (Related thumbnail images available here.) The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions shown here are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze. The round maps are polar stereographic projections that show the north or south pole in the center of the map and the equator at the edge. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2006 |
|
| Description |
Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
| Full Description |
This image is one of seven from the narrow-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft assembled as a brief movie of cloud movements on Jupiter. It was taken with a blue filter. The smallest features visible are about 500 kilometers (about 300 miles) across. Small bright clouds appear suddenly to the west of the Great Red Spot. Based on data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft, scientists suspect that these small white features are lightning storms, where falling raindrops create an electrical charge. The lightning storms eventually merge with the Red Spot and surrounding jets, and may be the main energy source for these large-scale features. Imaging observations of the dark side of the planet in the weeks following Cassini's closest approach to Jupiter on Dec. 30, 2000 will search for lightning storms like these. This image was re-projected by cylindrical-map projection of an image taken in the first week of October 2000. It shows an area from 50 degrees north of Jupiter's equator to 50 degrees south, extending 100 degrees east-west, about one quarter of Jupiter's circumference. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona For higher resolution, click here. |
|
Parachute Test
| title |
Parachute Test |
| date |
04.18.1983 |
| description |
A parachute for the Galileo spacecraft's atmospheric entry probe is tested in a wind tunnel at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. Galileo consisted of an orbiter and an atmosphere probe that descended into Jupiter's atmosphere on a parachute after being slowed down by a heat shield. The probe entered Jupiter's atmosphere on Dec. 7, 1995. *Image Credit*: NASA |
|
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupit
…
| title |
Cassini's Best Maps of Jupiter (South Polar Map) |
| description |
These color maps of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced, the smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter. The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions shown here are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze. The round maps are polar stereographic projections that show the north or south pole in the center of the map and the equator at the edge. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. |
|
Galileo Probe Descent
| title |
Galileo Probe Descent |
| date |
12.07.1995 |
| description |
An artist's impression of the Galileo probe descending into Jupiter's atmosphere. The probe wasthe first to sample the atmosphere of a gas planet. It measured temperature, pressure, chemical composition, cloud characteristics, sunlight and energy internal to the planet, and lightning. During its 58-minute life, the probe penetrated 200 km (124 miles) into Jupiter's violent atmosphere before it was crushed, melted, and/or vaporized by the pressure and temperature of the atmosphere. *Image Credit*: NASA |
|
Near and Far
| title |
Near and Far |
| description |
The above illustration, based on Galileo spacecraft images, shows the approximate difference in apparent size between a full moon at perigee (the closest point in the lunar orbit, pictured at left) and a full moon at apogee, the farthest point in the lunar orbit. *Image Credit*: NASA |
|
Galileo Spacecraft
| title |
Galileo Spacecraft |
| description |
As it arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, NASA's Galileo orbiter received a stream of data transmissions -- represented by the blue dots in this artist's depiction -- from the atmospheric probe that was descending through Jupiter's clouds. The orbiter had released the probe five months earlier. The wok-shaped probe sent information to the orbiter for 57.6 minutes as it dropped about 200 kilometers (125 miles) through the atmosphere, before succumbing to atmospheric pressure about 23 times greater than the average at Earth's sea level. The probe returned data about sunlight, heat flux, pressure, temperature, winds, lightning and atmospheric composition. About one hour after the end of the probe's transmissions, the orbiter fired its main engine to brake into orbit around Jupiter. Note: This illustration correctly shows the partially deployed main antenna. *Image Credit*: NASA |
|
A Brilliant Plume
| title |
A Brilliant Plume |
| date |
02.28.2007 |
| description |
The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on New Horizons captured another dramatic picture of Jupiter's moon Io and its volcanic plumes, 19 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter on Feb. 28, 2007. LORRI took this 75 millisecond exposure at 0035 Universal Time on March 1, 2007, when Io was 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from the spacecraft. Io's dayside is deliberately overexposed to bring out faint details in the plumes and on the moon's night side. The continuing eruption of the volcano Tvashtar, at the 1 o'clock position, produces an enormous plume roughly 330 kilometers (200 miles) high, which is illuminated both by sunlight and "Jupiter light." The shadow of Io, cast by the Sun, slices across the plume. The plume is quite asymmetrical and has a complicated wispy texture, for reasons that are still mysterious. At the heart of the eruption incandescent lava, seen here as a brilliant point of light, is reminding scientists of the fire fountains spotted by the Galileo Jupiter orbiter at Tvashtar in 1999. The sunlit plume faintly illuminates the surface underneath. "New Horizons and Io continue to astonish us with these unprecedented views of the solar system's most geologically active body" says John Spencer, deputy leader of the New Horizons Jupiter Encounter Science Team and an Io expert from Southwest Research Institute. Because this image shows the side of Io that faces away from Jupiter, the large planet does not illuminate the moon's night side except for an extremely thin crescent outlining the edge of the disk at lower right. Another plume, likely from the volcano Masubi, is illuminated by Jupiter just above this lower right edge. A third and much fainter plume, barely visible at the 2 o'clock position, could be the first plume seen from the volcano Zal Patera. As in other New Horizons images of Io, mountains catch the setting Sun just beyond the terminator (the line dividing day and night). The most prominent, seen as a bright vertical line, is the edge of a plateau about 4.5 kilometers (15,000 feet) high, similar in altitude to the Colorado Rockies. Io itself has a diameter of 3,630 kilometers (about 2,250 miles). The image is centered at Io coordinates 4 degrees S, 165 degrees W. It has been processed to reduce contrast, in order to show details over the full 1000-to-1 brightness range of the original data. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute |
|
On Approach: Jupiter and Io
| title |
On Approach: Jupiter and Io |
| date |
01.08.2007 |
| description |
This sequence of images was taken on Jan. 8, 2007, with the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), while the spacecraft was about 81 million kilometers (about 50 million miles) from Jupiter. Jupiter's volcanic moon Io is to the right, the planet's Great Red Spot is also visible. The image was one of 11 taken during the Jan. 8 approach sequence, which signaled the opening of the New Horizons Jupiter encounter. Even in these early approach images, Jupiter shows different face than what previous visiting spacecraft -- such as Voyager 1, Galileo and Cassini -- have seen. Regions around the equator and in the southern tropical latitudes seem remarkably calm, even in the typically turbulent "wake" behind the Great Red Spot. The New Horizons science team will scrutinize these major meteorological features -- including the unexpectedly calm regions -- to understand the diverse variety of dynamical processes on the solar system's largest planet. These include the newly formed Little Red Spot, the Great Red Spot and a variety of zonal features. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute |
|
Io Mosaic
| title |
Io Mosaic |
| description |
Io is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System. Volcanoes erupt massive volumes of silicate lava, sulphur and sulphur dioxide, constantly changing Io's appearance. This new basemap of Jupiter's moon Io was produced by combining the best images from both the Voyager 1 and Galileo Missions. Although the subjovian hemisphere of Io was poorly seen by Galileo, superbly detailed Voyager 1 images cover longitudes from 240 W to 40 W and th nearby southern latitudes. A monochrome mosaic of the highest resolution images from both Galileo and Voyager 1 was assembled that includes 51 Voyager 1 images with spatial exceeding the 1 km/pixel scale of the final mosaic. Because this mosaic is made up of images taken at various local times of day, care must be taken to note the solar illumination direction when deciding whether topographic features display positive or negative relief. In general, the illumination is from the west over longitudes 40 to 270 W, and from the east over longitudes 270 W to 40 W. Color information was later superimposed from Galileo low phase angle violet, green, and near-infrared (756 nanometer wavelength) images. The Galileo SSI camera's silicon CCD was sensitive to longer wavelengths than the vidicon cameras of Voyager, so that distinctions between red and yellow hues can be more easily discerned. The "true" colors that would be visible to the eye are similar but much more muted than shown here. Image resolutions range from 1 to 10 km/pixel along the equator, with the poorest coverage centered on longitude 50 W. This mosaic is in an equal area cylindrical map projection, centered on longitude 180, with grid lines at 30 degree intervals. Full scale versions of this mosaic, and the data products used to generate it, can be obtained from the USGS Astrogeology website - http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/JupiterSatellites/ Mosaic credit: Tammy Becker and Paul Geissler, USGS. |
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Jupiter's Rings
| title |
Jupiter's Rings |
| date |
02.24.2007 |
| description |
The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) snapped this photo of Jupiter's ring system on February 24, 2007, from a distance of 7.1 million kilometers (4.4 million miles). This processed image shows a narrow ring, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) wide, with a fainter sheet of material inside it. The faint glow extending in from the ring is likely caused by fine dust that diffuses in toward Jupiter. This is the outer tip of the "halo," a cloud of dust that extends down to Jupiter's cloud tops. The dust will glow much brighter in pictures taken after New Horizons passes to the far side of Jupiter and looks back at the rings, which will then be sunlit from behind. Jupiter's ring system was discovered in 1979, when astronomers spied it in a single image taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Months later, Voyager 2 carried out more extensive imaging of the system. It has since been examined by NASA's Galileo and Cassini spacecraft, as well as by the Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based observatories. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute |
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Galileo Leaves Atlantis
| title |
Galileo Leaves Atlantis |
| date |
10.18.1989 |
| description |
The Galileo spacecraft mounted atop the inertial upper stage (IUS) is tilted to a 58-degree deployment position by deployment equipment aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis. The bluish-white glow on the left is Earth. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Europa Exploration Concept
| title |
Europa Exploration Concept |
| description |
Almost 30 years ago, NASA's Voyagers 1 and 2 (lower left) made their historic rendezvous with the Jupiter system and first revealed Europa's icy-covered surface. In 1995, the Galileo spacecraft entered orbit about Jupiter, and for years studied the giant planet and its major moons. From this mission we learned that Europa is a world covered with a global ocean about 100 kilometers (60 miles) deep, and that this ocean was capped, liked Earth's Arctic Ocean, with a shell of solid ice. To learn more about the ocean and the ice shell above, and especially to investigate the ocean's suitability to sustain life, will require the next step, a future mission dedicated to exploring Europa from orbit about the moon itself (center). Both NASA and the European Space Agency are actively studying the possibility of launching such a mission in the next 10 years. If a mission is launched, depending on what is found, future missions to Europa might involve landers or even autonomous vehicles, called cryobots (upper right), that melt through the ice to explore the ocean below, perhaps sometime later in this century. Credit: NASA/JPL |
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The Earth-Moon System
| title |
The Earth-Moon System |
| date |
12.16.1992 |
| description |
Eight days after its final encounter with the Earth, the Galileo spacecraft looked back and captured this remarkable view of the Earth and Moon. The image was taken from a distance of about 6.2 million kilometers (3.9 million miles). The picture was constructed from images taken through the violet, red, and 1.0-micron infrared filters. The Moon is in the foreground, moving from left to right. The brightly-colored Earth contrasts strongly with the Moon, which reflects only about one-third as much sunlight as the Earth. Contrast and color have been computer-enhanced for both objects to improve visibility. Antarctica is visible through clouds (bottom). The Moon's far side is seen, the shadowy indentation in the dawn terminator is the south pole Aitken Basin, one of the largest and oldest lunar impact features. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Galileo Deployment
| title |
Galileo Deployment |
| date |
10.18.1989 |
| description |
The Galileo spacecraft atop the inertial upper stage is deployed from the Space Shuttle Atlantis' payload bay. This is a frame taken from a 70mm motion picture film of the deployment sequence. The film was used in the "Blue Planet" IMAX film. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Gaspra - Galileo
| title |
Gaspra - Galileo |
| date |
10.29.1991 |
| description |
The Galileo spacecraft captured this view of asteroid 951 Gaspra in 1991. It was the first time a spacecraft made a close flyby of an asteroid. This image is a combination of images taken with the violet, green and near-IR filters at a resolution of about 163 m/pixel overlain on a 54 m/pixel resolution clear filter image. The colors are highly exaggerated to bring out subtle differences in surface properties. Bluish regions represent fresher rock, while reddish regions are composed of regolith materials. Gaspra is an irregular shaped body about 19 x 12 x 11 km. The illuminated portion in this image is about 18 km from lower left to upper right. The sun is shinning from the right. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Galileo Diagram (Unlabeled)
| title |
Galileo Diagram (Unlabeled) |
| description |
A line drawing of the Galileo spacecraft. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Galileo Diagram (Labeled)
| title |
Galileo Diagram (Labeled) |
| description |
This diagram of the Galileo spacecraft shows the equipment and instruments the spacecraft carried to Jupiter. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Galileo at Amalthea
| title |
Galileo at Amalthea |
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An artist's concept of Galileo passing near Jupiter's small inner moon Amalthea. Galileo flew past the tiny moon in November 2002. *Image Credit*: Michael Carroll and NASA |
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Ganymede Topography
| title |
Ganymede Topography |
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This perspective view, simulating a low altitude flight over the surface of Ganymede, was made possible by topographic analysis of stereo images of the Sippar Sulcus region. Such a view was made possible when Galileo passed Ganymede in May 1997, providing a virtual second "eye" to Voyager's first view in 1979. Because this view covers a large area, it reveals that younger, smoother terrains are low-lying relative to older, heavily faulted terrains. The consistently low elevations of these smooth deposits has been cited as evidence for flooding of parts of Ganymede by low-viscosity lavas, most likely liquid water or water-ice slush. This view is centered at 35 degrees south, 180 degrees west. The smallest features visible are roughly 350 to 400 meters (1,150 to 1,300 feet) across. This image was prepared by the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, and included in a report by Dr. Paul Schenk et al. in the March 1, 2001, edition of the journal Nature. *Image Credit*: NASA and Lunar and Planetary Institute |
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Moon Color Composite
| title |
Moon Color Composite |
| date |
12.09.1990 |
| description |
This color image of the Moon was taken by the Galileo spacecraft at 9:35 a.m. PST Dec. 9, 1990, at a range of about 350,000 miles. The color composite uses monochrome images taken through violet, red, and near-infrared filters. The concentric, circular Orientale basin, 600 miles across, is near the center, the nearside is to the right, the far side to the left. At the upper right is the large, dark Oceanus Procellarum, below it is the smaller Mare Humorum. These, like the small dark Mare Orientale in the center of the basin, formed over 3 billion years ago as basaltic lava flows. At the lower left, among the southern cratered highlands of the far side, is the South-Pole-Aitken basin, similar to Orientale but twice as great in diameter and much older and more degraded by cratering and weathering. The cratered highlands of the near and far sides and the Maria are covered with scattered bright, young ray craters. *Image Credit*: JPL |
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Venus Cloud Patterns (Colori
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| title |
Venus Cloud Patterns (Colorized and Filtered) |
| date |
02.14.1990 |
| description |
This picture of Venus was taken by the Galileo spacecrafts Solid State Imaging System on February 14, 1990, at a range of almost 1.7 million miles from the planet. A highpass spatial filter has been applied in order to emphasize the smaller scale cloud features, and the rendition has been colorized to a bluish hue in order to emphasize the subtle contrasts in the cloud markings and to indicate that it was taken through a violet filter. The sulfuric acid clouds indicate considerable convective activity, in the equatorial regions of the planet to the left and downwind of the subsolar point (afternoon on Venus). They are analogous to "fair weather clouds" on Earth. The filamentary dark features visible in the colorized image are here revealed to be composed of several dark nodules, like beads on a string, each about 60 miles across. The Galileo Project is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, its mission is to study Jupiter and its satellites and magnetosphere after multiple gravity assist flybys at Venus and Earth. *Image Credit*: JPL |
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Galileo Launch
| title |
Galileo Launch |
| date |
10.18.1989 |
| description |
The Space Shuttle Atlantis - carrying the Galileo spacecraft - soars above Florida on Oct. 18, 1989. The scene was recorded with a 70mm camera by astronaut Daniel Brandenstein. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Leaving Earth Orbit
| title |
Leaving Earth Orbit |
| description |
The Galileo spacecraft atop its two-stage Inertial Upper Stage has just been released from the space shuttle in this artist's rendering. Galileo was launched to Jupiter in October 1989 from the Space Shuttle Atlantis. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Asgard
| title |
Asgard |
| date |
11.04.1996 |
| description |
This four-frame mosaic shows the ancient impact structure Asgard on Jupiter's moon Callisto. This image is centered at 300N, 1420W. The Asgard structure is approximately 1700 kilometers across and consists of a bright central zone surrounded by discontinuous rings. The rings are tectonic features with scarps near the central zone and troughs at the outer margin. Several large impacts have smashed into Callisto after the formation of Asgard. The very young, bright-rayed crater Burr is located on the northern part of Asgard. This mosaic has been projected to show a uniform scale between the four images. This image was taken on November 4, 1996, at a distance of 111,891 kilometers by the Solid-State Imaging System onboard the Galileo spacecraft during its third orbit around Jupiter. *Image Credit*: Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fuer Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR) |
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Io Flyby
| title |
Io Flyby |
| date |
05.03.1996 |
| description |
An artist's impression of the Galileo orbiter flying past Jupiter's volcanic moon Io. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Ida and Dactyl in Enhanced C
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| title |
Ida and Dactyl in Enhanced Color |
| date |
08.28.1993 |
| description |
This color picture is made from images taken by the imaging system on the Galileo spacecraft about 14 minutes before its closest approach to asteroid 243 Ida on August 28, 1993. The range from the spacecraft was about 10,500 kilometers (6,500 miles). The images used are from the sequence in which Ida's moon was originally discovered, the moon is visible to the right of the asteroid. This picture is made from images through the 4100-angstrom (violet), 7560 A (infrared) and 9680 A (infrared) filters. The color is 'enhanced' in the sense that the CCD camera is sensitive to near infrared wavelengths of light beyond human vision, a 'natural' color picture of this asteroid would appear mostly gray. Shadings in the image indicate changes in illumination angle on the many steep slopes of this irregular body as well as subtle color variations due to differences in the physical state and composition of the soil (regolith). There are brighter areas, appearing bluish in the picture, around craters on the upper left end of Ida, around the small bright crater near the center of the asteroid, and near the upper right-hand edge (the limb). This is a combination of more reflected blue light and greater absorption of near infrared light, suggesting a difference in the abundance or composition of iron-bearing minerals in these areas. Ida's moon also has a deeper near-infrared absorption and a different color in the violet than any area on this side of Ida. The moon is not identical in spectral properties to any area of Ida in view here, though its overall similarity in reflectance and general spectral type suggests that it is made of the same rock types basically. These data, combined with study of further imaging data and more detailed spectra from the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, may allow scientists to determine whether the larger parent body of which Ida, its moon, and some other asteroids are fragments was a heated, differentiated object or made of relatively unaltered primitive chondritic material. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. *Image Credit*: JPL |
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Callisto's Har Crater
| title |
Callisto's Har Crater |
| date |
11.04.1997 |
| description |
This image shows a heavily cratered region near Callisto's equator. It was taken by the Galileo spacecraft's Solid-State Imaging System on its ninth orbit around Jupiter. North is to the top of the image. The 105-kilometer double ring crater in the center of the image is named Har. Har displays an unusual rounded mound on its floor. The origin of the mound is unclear but probably involves uplift of ice-rich materials from below, either as a "rebound" immediately following the impact that formed the crater or as a later process. Har is older than the prominent 41-kilometer crater superposed on its western rim. The large crater partially visible in the northeast corner of the image is called Tindr. Chains of secondary craters (craters formed from the impact of materials thrown out of the main crater during an impact) originating from Tindr crosscut the eastern rim of Har. The image, centered at 3.30S latitude and 357.90W longitude, covers an area of 245 kilometers by 230 kilometers. The Sun illuminates the scene from the west (left). The smallest distinguishable features in the image are about 294 meters across. This image was obtained on June 25, 1997, when Galileo was 14,080 kilometers from Callisto. *Image Credit*: Arizona State University |
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