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Jupiter's Moons
On Jan. 7, 1610, Galileo Gal …
01/08/10
Description On Jan. 7, 1610, Galileo Galilei's improvements to the telescope enabled humanity to see Jupiter's four largest moons for the first time. Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto--the so-called Galilean satellites--were seen by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager on the New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby of Jupiter in late February 2007. The images have been scaled to represent the true relative sizes of the four moons and are arranged in their order from Jupiter. Io is notable for its active volcanism, which New Horizons studied extensively. On the other hand, Europa's smooth, icy surface likely conceals an ocean of liquid water. New Horizons obtained data on Europa's surface composition and imaged subtle surface features, and analysis of these data may provide new information about the ocean and the icy shell that covers it. New Horizons spied Ganymede from 2.2 million miles away. Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, has a dirty ice surface cut by fractures and peppered by impact craters. New Horizons' infrared observations may provide insight into the composition of the moon's surface and interior. Scientists are using the infrared spectra New Horizons gathered of Callisto's ancient, cratered surface to calibrate spectral analysis techniques that will help them to understand the surfaces of Pluto and its moon Charon when New Horizons passes them in 2015. Image Credit: NASA/JHU-APL/Southwest Research Institute
Date 01/08/10
Alice Views Jupiter and Io
title Alice Views Jupiter and Io
date 04.04.2007
description This graphic illustrates the pointing and shows the data from one of many observations made by the New Horizons Alice ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS) instrument during the Pluto-bound spacecraft's recent encounter with Jupiter. The red lines in the graphic show the scale, orientation, and position of the combined "box and slot" field of view of the Alice UVS during this observation. The positions of Jupiter's volcanic moon, Io, the torus of ionized gas from Io, and Jupiter are shown relative to the Alice field of view. Like a prism, the spectrometer separates light from these targets into its constituent wavelengths. Io's volcanoes produce an extremely tenuous atmosphere made up primarily of sulfur dioxide gas, which, in the harsh plasma environment at Io, breaks down into its component sulfur and oxygen atoms. Alice observed the auroral glow from these atoms in Io's atmosphere and their ionized counterparts in the Io torus. 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." Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
A Burst of Color
title A Burst of Color
description New Horizons captured this unique view of Jupiter's moon Io with its color camera -- the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) -- at 00:25 UT on March 1, 2007, from a range of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). The image is centered at Io coordinates 4 degrees south, 162 degrees west, and was taken shortly before the complementary Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) photo of Io released on March 13, which had higher resolution but was not in color. As in the LORRI picture, this processed image shows the nighttime glow of the Tvashtar volcano and its plume rising 330 kilometers (200 miles) into sunlight above Io's north pole. However, the MVIC picture reveals the intense red of the glowing lava at the plume source and the contrasting blue of the fine dust particles in the plume (similar to the bluish color of smoke), as well as more subtle colors on Io's sunlit crescent. The lower parts of the plume in Io's shadow, lit only by the much fainter light from Jupiter, are almost invisible in this rendition. Contrast has been reduced to show the large range of brightness between the plume and Io's disk. A component of the Ralph imaging instrument, MVIC has three broadband color filters: blue (480 nanometers), red (620 nm) and infrared (850 nm), as well as a narrow methane filter (890 nm). Because the camera was designed for the dim illumination at Pluto, not the much brighter sunlight at Jupiter, the red and infrared filters are overexposed on Io's dayside. This image is therefore composed from the blue and methane filters only, and the colors shown are only approximations to those that the eye would see. Nevertheless, the human eye would easily see the red color of the volcano and the blue color of the plume. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
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
A Look from LEISA
title A Look from LEISA
date 02.24.2007
description On February 24, 2007, the LEISA (pronounced "Leesa") infrared spectral imager in the New Horizons Ralph instrument observed giant Jupiter in 250 narrow spectral channels. At the time the spacecraft was 6 million kilometers (nearly 4 million miles) from Jupiter, at that range, the LEISA imager can resolve structures about 400 kilometers (250 miles) across. LEISA observes in 250 infrared wavelengths, which range from 1.25 micrometers (µm) to 2.50 µm. The three images shown above from that dataset are at wavelengths of 1.27 µm (left), 1.53 µm (center) and 1.88 µm (right). The bright areas in the image frames are caused by solar radiation reflected from clouds and hazes in Jupiter's atmosphere. Dark areas correspond to atmospheric regions where solar radiation is absorbed before it can be reflected. The dark circular feature in the upper left of all three images is the shadow of Jupiter's innermost large moon, Io. Light at 1.53 µm (center frame) comes from relatively high in the atmosphere. The other two channels probe deeper atmospheric levels. Features that are bright in all three pictures come from high-altitude clouds. Features that are bright in the 1.27 and 1.88 µm channels, but darker in the 1.53-µm channel come from lower clouds. For example, there is an isolated circular feature (the "Little Red Spot") in the lower left of the 1.53-µm image. In the 1.27 and 1.88 µm data, this circular feature is surrounded by other structures. The implication is that the "Little Red Spot" is caused by a system that extends far up into the atmosphere, while other structures are lower. At closest approach to Jupiter on February 28, at a distance of about 2.5 million kilometers (1.4 million miles), LEISA's resolution was about three times better than it was on February 24. LEISA images made at that far-better resolution are still stored in the spacecraft's data recorder, awaiting downlink from New Horizons. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Ganymede's Shadow
title Ganymede's Shadow
date 01.09.2007
description The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took this photo of Jupiter at 20:42:01 UTC on January 9, 2007, when the spacecraft was 80 million kilometers (49.6 million miles) from the giant planet. The volcanic moon Io is to the left of the planet, the shadow of the icy moon Ganymede moves across Jupiter's northern hemisphere. Ganymede's average orbit distance from Jupiter is about 1 million kilometers (620,000 miles), Io's is 422,000 kilometers (262,000 miles). Both Io and Ganymede are larger than Earth's moon, Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Moons around Jupiter
title Moons around Jupiter
date 01.09.2007
description The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took this photo of Jupiter at 20:42:01 UTC on January 9, 2007, when the spacecraft was 80 million kilometers (49.6 million miles) from the giant planet. The volcanic moon Io is to the left of the planet, the shadow of the icy moon Ganymede moves across Jupiter's northern hemisphere. Ganymede's average orbit distance from Jupiter is about 1 million kilometers (620,000 miles), Io's is 422,000 kilometers (262,000 miles). Both Io and Ganymede are larger than Earth's moon, Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Ganymede
title Ganymede
date 02.27.2007
description This is New Horizons' best image of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, taken with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera at 10:01 Universal Time on February 27 from a range of 3.5 million kilometers (2.2 million miles). The longitude of the disk center is 38 degrees West and the image scale is 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. Dark patches of ancient terrain are broken up by swaths of brighter, younger material, and the entire icy surface is peppered by more recent impact craters that have splashed fresh, bright ice across the surface. With a diameter of 5,268 kilometers (3.273 miles), Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system. This is one of a handful of Jupiter system images already returned by New Horizons during its close approach to Jupiter. Most of the data being gathered by the spacecraft are stored onboard and will be downlinked to Earth during March and April 2007. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Io and Ganymede
title Io and Ganymede
date 01.17.2007
description The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took this 4-millisecond exposure of Jupiter and two of its moons at 01:41:04 UTC on January 17, 2007. The spacecraft was 68.5 million kilometers (42.5 million miles) from Jupiter, closing in on the giant planet at 41,500 miles (66,790 kilometers) per hour. The volcanic moon Io is the closest planet to the right of Jupiter, the icy moon Ganymede is to Io's right. The shadows of each satellite are visible atop Jupiter's clouds, Ganymede's shadow is draped over Jupiter's northwestern limb. Ganymede's average orbit distance from Jupiter is about 1.07 million kilometers (620,000 miles), Io's is 422,000 kilometers (262,000 miles). Both Io and Ganymede are larger than Earth's moon, Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
An Eruption on Io
title An Eruption on Io
date 02.26.2007
description The first images returned to Earth by New Horizons during its close encounter with Jupiter feature the Galilean moon Io, snapped with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 0840 UTC on February 26, while the moon was 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from the spacecraft. Io is intensely heated by its tidal interaction with Jupiter and is thus extremely volcanically active. That activity is evident in these images, which reveal an enormous dust plume, more than 150 miles high, erupting from the volcano Tvashtar. The plume appears as an umbrella-shaped feature of the edge of Io's disk in the 11 o'clock position in the right image, which is a long-exposure (20-millisecond) frame designed specifically to look for plumes like this. The bright spots at 2 o'clock are high mountains catching the setting sun, beyond them the night side of Io can be seen, faintly illuminated by light reflected from Jupiter itself. The left image is a shorter exposure -- 3 milliseconds -- designed to look at surface features. In this frame, the Tvashtar volcano shows as a dark spot, also at 11 o'clock, surrounded by a large dark ring, where an area larger than Texas has been covered by fallout from the giant eruption. This is the clearest view yet of a plume from Tvashtar, one of Io's most active volcanoes. Ground-based telescopes and the Galileo Jupiter orbiter first spotted volcanic heat radiation from Tvashtar in November 1999, and the Cassini spacecraft saw a large plume when it flew past Jupiter in December 2000. The Keck telescope in Hawaii picked up renewed heat radiation from Tvashtar in spring 2006, and just two weeks ago the Hubble Space Telescope saw the Tvashtar plume in ultraviolet images designed to support the New Horizons flyby. Most of those images will be stored onboard the spacecraft for downlink to Earth in March and April. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Europa
title Europa
description This image of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, the first Europa image returned by New Horizons, was taken with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera at 07:19 Universal Time on February 27, from a range of 3.1 million kilometers (1.9 million miles). The longitude of the disk center is 307 degrees West and the image scale is 15 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel. This is one of a series of images designed to look for landforms near Europa's terminator -- the line dividing day and night -- where low Sun angles highlight subtle topographic features. Europa's fractured icy surface is thought to overlie an ocean about 100 kilometers (60 miles) below the surface, and the New Horizons team will be analyzing these images for clues about the nature of the icy crust and the forces that have deformed it. Europa is about the size of Earth's moon, with a diameter of 3,130 kilometers (1.945 miles). This is one of a handful of images of the Jupiter system already returned by New Horizons during its close approach to Jupiter. Most of the data being gathered by the spacecraft are stored onboard and will be downlinked to Earth during March and April 2007. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Capturing Callisto
title Capturing Callisto
date 02.27.2007
description The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) captured these two images of Jupiter's outermost large moon, Callisto, as the spacecraft flew past Jupiter in late February. New Horizons' closest approach distance to Jupiter was 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles), not far outside Callisto's orbit, which has a radius of 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles). However, Callisto happened to be on the opposite side of Jupiter during the spacecraft's pass through the Jupiter system, so these images, taken from 4.7 million kilometers (3.0 million miles) and 4.2 million kilometers (2.6 million miles) away, are the closest of Callisto that New Horizons obtained. Callisto's ancient, crater-scarred surface makes it very different from its three more active sibling satellites, Io, Europa and Ganymede. Callisto, 4,800 kilometers (3000 miles) in diameter, displays no large-scale geological features other than impact craters, and every bright spot in these images is a crater. The largest impact feature on Callisto, the huge basin Valhalla, is visible as a bright patch at the 10 o'clock position. The craters are bright because they have excavated material relatively rich in water ice from beneath the dark, dusty material that coats most of the surface. The two images show essentially the same side of Callisto - the side that faces Jupiter - under different illumination conditions. The images accompanied scans of Callisto's infrared spectrum with New Horizons' Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA). The New Horizons science team designed these scans to study how the infrared spectrum of Callisto's water ice changes as lighting and viewing conditions change, and as the ice cools through Callisto's late afternoon. The infrared spectrum of water ice depends slightly on its temperature, and a goal of New Horizons when it reaches the Pluto system (in 2015) is to use the water ice features in the spectrum of Pluto's moon Charon, and perhaps on Pluto itself, to measure surface temperature. Callisto provided an ideal opportunity to test this technique on a much better-known body. The left image, taken at 05:03 Universal Time on February 27, 2007, is centered at 5 degrees south, 5 degrees west, and has a solar phase angle of 46 degrees. The right image was taken at 03:25 Universal Time on February 28, 2007. It is centered at 4 degrees south, 356 degrees west, and has a solar phase angle of 76 degrees. Released: April 5, 2007 Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
New Horizons at Pluto
title New Horizons at Pluto
description Artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft during a planned encounter with Pluto and its moon, Charon. The craft's miniature cameras, radio science experiment, ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers and space plasma experiments would characterize the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures, and examine Pluto's atmosphere in detail. The spacecraft's most prominent design feature is a nearly 8-foot (2.1-meter) dish antenna, through which it would communicate with Earth from as far as 4.7 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) away. *Image Credit*: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI)
Hubble Monitors Jupiter in S …
Title Hubble Monitors Jupiter in Support of the New Horizons Flyby
Hubble Monitors Jupiter in S …
Title Hubble Monitors Jupiter in Support of the New Horizons Flyby
Hubble Monitors Jupiter in S …
Title Hubble Monitors Jupiter in Support of the New Horizons Flyby
New Horizons at Io
Title New Horizons at Io
Explanation Spewed from a volcano [ http://volcano.und.edu/volcanoes.html ], a complex plume rises over 300 kilometers above the horizon of Jupiter's moon Io in this image from cameras onboard the New Horizons [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php ] spacecraft. The volcano, Tvashtar [ http://www.planetaryexploration.net/jupiter/io/ lava_fountains.html ], is marked by the bright glow [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000606.html ] (about 1 o'clock) at the moon's edge, beyond the terminator or night/day shadow line. The shadow of Io cuts across the plume itself. Also capturing stunning details on the dayside surface, the high resolution image [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/ 031307.html ] was recorded when the spacecraft was 2.3 million kilometers from Io. Later it was combined with lower resolution color data [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/ 032807.html ] by astro-imager Sean Walker to produce this sharp portrait of the solar system's most active moon [ http://www.nineplanets.org/io.html ]. Outward bound at almost 23 kilometers "per second", the New Horizons spacecraft should cross the orbit of Saturn in June next year, and is ultimately destined [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/passingplanets/ passingPlanets_current.php ] to encounter Pluto [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060624.html ] in 2015.
Eris: More Massive than Plut …
Title Eris: More Massive than Pluto
Explanation Eris [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_%28dwarf_planet%29 ], a dwarf planet [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet ] currently orbiting the Sun at about twice Pluto's distance, has been measured [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/24 ] to have about 27 percent more mass than Pluto. The mass was calculated by timing the orbit of Eris' moon Dysnomia [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysnomia_(moon) ]. Images taken with a ground-based Keck telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971227.html ], when combined with existing images taken by Hubble Space Telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010806.html ], show that Dysnomia has a nearly circular orbit lasting about 16 days. Cataloged as 2003 UB313 only a year ago, infrared images [ http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/infrared.html ] also showed previously that Eris is actually larger in diameter than Pluto [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060903.html ]. The plane of Eris' orbit is well out of the plane of the Solar System [ http://nineplanets.org/overview.html ]'s planets. In the above drawing, a scientific artist has imagined Eris and Dysnomia orbiting our distant Sun. No space missions are currently planned to Eris, although the robotic New Horizons [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons ] spacecraft bound for Pluto [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/faqs.php ] has recently passed Jupiter [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070307.html ].
Pluto: New Horizons
Title Pluto: New Horizons
Explanation Pluto's [ http://dosxx.colorado.edu/plutohome.html ] horizon spans the foreground in this artist's vision, gazing sunward across that distant and not yet explored [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960212.html ] world. Titled New Horizons, the painting also depicts Pluto's [ http://maps.jpl.nasa.gov/pluto.html ] companion, Charon [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/ pluto.html#charon ], as a darkened, ghostly apparition with a luminous crescent [ http://www.lowell.edu/users/buie/pluto/chphases.html ] against a starry background. Beyond Charon [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ice_fire/CharonDiscovery.htm ], the diminished Sun is immersed in a flattened cloud of zodiacal dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010912.html ]. Here, Pluto's ruddy colors are based on existing astronomical [ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query? bibcode=2000DPS....32.4601Y ] observations while imagined but scientifically [ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query? bibcode=1999AJ....117.1063Y ] tenable details provided by the artist include high atmospheric cirrus and dark plumes from surface vents, in analogy to Neptune's large moon Triton [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950805.html ] explored by the Voyager [ http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/voyager_fs.html ] 2 spacecraft in 1989. Craters suggest bombardment by Kuiper Belt [ http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/faculty/jewitt/kb.html ] objects, a newly understood population of [ http://www.solstation.com/stars/kuiper.htm ] outer solar system bodies likely related to [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010830.html ] the Pluto-Charon system [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ice_fire//alans.htm ]. NASA is now considering a future robotic reconnaissance mission to [ ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2001/01-114.txt ] Pluto-Charon and the Kuiper Belt which could reach the distant worlds late in the next decade.
A Jupiter-Io Montage from Ne …
Title A Jupiter-Io Montage from New Horizons
Explanation As the New Horizons spacecraft sweeps through the Solar System, it is taking breathtaking images of the planets. In February of last year, New Horizons [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ ] passed Jupiter and the ever-active Jovian moon Io [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070404.html ]. In this montage [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10102 ], Jupiter was captured in three bands of infrared light [ http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/ infrared.html ] making the Great Red Spot [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Great_red_spot ] look white. Complex hurricane-like ovals [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060505.html ], swirls, and planet-ringing bands are visible in Jupiter's complex atmosphere [ http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/jupiter/ atmosphere.html ]. Io is digitally [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10102 ] superposed in natural color. Fortuitously, a plume was emanating from Io [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(moon) ]'s volcano Tvashtar [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011016.html ]. Frost and sulfuric lava cover the volcanic moon, while red-glowing lava [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051002.html ] is visible beneath the blue sunlight-scattering [ http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/BlueSky/blue_sky.html ] plume. The robotic New Horizons spacecraft [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons ] is on track to arrive at Pluto [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060828.html ] in 2015.
New Horizons at Jupiter
Title New Horizons at Jupiter
Explanation Headed for the first close-up exploration of the Pluto-Charon system [ http://www.plutoportal.net/ ] and the icy denizens of the Kuiper belt [ http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/faculty/jewitt/kb.html ], NASA's New Horizons [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission.htm ] spacecraft is pictured here in an artist's vision of the robot probe outward bound. The dramatic scene [ http://www.swri.org/press/jest.htm ] depicts the 465 kilogram spacecraft about one year after a planned 2006 launch, following a flyby of gas giant Jupiter [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031114.html ]. While the Jupiter flyby [ http://www.swri.edu/9what/releases/ JEST.htm ] will be used as a gravity assist [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/grav/primer.html ] maneuver to save fuel and cut travel time to the outer reaches of the Solar System [ http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/ nineplanets.html ], it will also provide an opportunity to test instruments and study the giant planet, its moons, and magnetic fields. The Sun is seen from eight hundred million kilometers away, with inner planets Earth, Venus, and Mercury aligned [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001014.html ] on the left. A dim crescent of outermost Galilean moon Callisto [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010731.html ], orbiting Jupiter just inside of the spacecraft's trajectory, appears to the upper right of the fading Sun. Left of Jupiter itself is Europa [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030919.html ] and in the distant background are the faint, unresolved stars and dust clouds of the Milky Way [ http://home.arcor-online.de/axel.mellinger/ ]. New Horizons' planned arrival at Pluto-Charon [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/plutocharon.htm ] is in the summer of 2015.
New Horizons Launches to Plu …
Title New Horizons Launches to Pluto
Explanation Destination: Pluto. The New Horizons [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.html ] spacecraft roared off its launch pad at Cape Canaveral [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011022.html ] in Florida [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida ], USA [ http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html ] last week toward adventures in the distant Solar System [ http://www.nineplanets.org/overview.html ]. The craft is one of the fastest spaceships [ http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=46995 ] ever launched [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041212.html ] by humans, having passed the Moon only nine hours after launch and is on track to buzz Jupiter [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050911.html ] in early 2007. Even traveling over 75,000 kilometers per hour, the New Horizons craft [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons ] will not arrive at Pluto until 2015. Pluto [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011018.html ] is the only remaining planet that has never been visited by a spacecraft or photographed up close. After Pluto [ http://www.nineplanets.org/pluto.html ], the robot spaceship will visit one or more Kuiper Belt Objects [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt ] orbiting the Sun even further out than Pluto. Pictured [ http://www.launchphotography.com/NewHorizons.html ], the New Horizons craft launches into space [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020724.html ] atop a powerful Atlas V [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020916.html ] rocket.
Nix and Hydra
Title Nix and Hydra
Explanation Discovered in mid-2005, Pluto's small moons [ http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0601018 ] were provisionally [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051103.html ] designated S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2. They have now been officially christened Nix and Hydra [ http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2006/ 060622.asp ]. Compared to Pluto and its large moon Charon, at 2,360 and 1,210 kilometers in diameter respectively, Nix (inner moon) and Hydra (outer moon) are tiny, estimated to be only 40 to 160 kilometers across. Pluto and Charon are bright enough to create diffraction [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010415.html ] spikes in this Hubble Space Telescope image, but Nix and Hydra are [ http://www.boulder.swri.edu/plutomoons/ ] some 5,000 times fainter than Pluto and appear only as small points of light. Still, their new names are appropriate for the distant Pluto system. In mythology, Nix was [ http://www.pantheon.org/articles/n/nyx.html ] the goddess of darkness and night and the mother of Charon, while Hydra [ http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hydra.html ] was a nine headed monster and is now orbiting the solar system's ninth planet. Of course Nix and Hydra also share initials with the pluto-bound spacecraft New Horizons [ http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ ].
Capturing Callisto
PIA09258
Jupiter
LORRI
Title Capturing Callisto
Original Caption Released with Image The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) captured these two images of Jupiter's outermost large moon, Callisto, as the spacecraft flew past Jupiter in late February. New Horizons' closest approach distance to Jupiter was 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles), not far outside Callisto's orbit, which has a radius of 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles). However, Callisto happened to be on the opposite side of Jupiter during the spacecraft's pass through the Jupiter system, so these images, taken from 4.7 million kilometers (3.0 million miles) and 4.2 million kilometers (2.6 million miles) away, are the closest of Callisto that New Horizons obtained. Callisto's ancient, crater-scarred surface makes it very different from its three more active sibling satellites, Io, Europa and Ganymede. Callisto, 4,800 kilometers (3000 miles) in diameter, displays no large-scale geological features other than impact craters, and every bright spot in these images is a crater. The largest impact feature on Callisto, the huge basin Valhalla, is visible as a bright patch at the 10 o'clock position. The craters are bright because they have excavated material relatively rich in water ice from beneath the dark, dusty material that coats most of the surface. The two images show essentially the same side of Callisto -- the side that faces Jupiter -- under different illumination conditions. The images accompanied scans of Callisto's infrared spectrum with New Horizons' Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA). The New Horizons science team designed these scans to study how the infrared spectrum of Callisto's water ice changes as lighting and viewing conditions change, and as the ice cools through Callisto's late afternoon. The infrared spectrum of water ice depends slightly on its temperature, and a goal of New Horizons when it reaches the Pluto system (in 2015) is to use the water ice features in the spectrum of Pluto's moon Charon, and perhaps on Pluto itself, to measure surface temperature. Callisto provided an ideal opportunity to test this technique on a much better-known body. The left image, taken at 05:03 Universal Time on February 27, 2007, is centered at 5 degrees south, 5 degrees west, and has a solar phase angle of 46 degrees. The right image was taken at 03:25 Universal Time on February 28, 2007. It is centered at 4 degrees south, 356 degrees west, and has a solar phase angle of 76 degrees.
New Horizons at Pluto
PIA10075
Title New Horizons at Pluto
Original Caption Released with Image Artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, in July 2015. The craft's miniature cameras, radio science experiment, ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers and space plasma experiments will characterize the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures, and examine Pluto's atmosphere in detail. The spacecraft's most prominent design feature is a nearly 7-foot (2.1-meter) dish antenna, through which it will communicate with Earth from as far as 4.7 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) away.
Tvashtar in Motion
PIA09665
Jupiter
LORRI
Title Tvashtar in Motion
Original Caption Released with Image This five-frame sequence of New Horizons images captures the giant plume from Io's Tvashtar volcano. Snapped by the probe's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) as the spacecraft flew past Jupiter earlier this year, this first-ever "movie" of an Io plume clearly shows motion in the cloud of volcanic debris, which extends 330 kilometers (200 miles) above the moon's surface. Only the upper part of the plume is visible from this vantage point -- the plume's source is 130 kilometers (80 miles) below the edge of Io's disk, on the far side of the moon. The appearance and motion of the plume is remarkably similar to an ornamental fountain on Earth, replicated on a gigantic scale. The knots and filaments that allow us to track the plume's motion are still mysterious, but this movie is likely to help scientists understand their origin, as well as provide unique information on the plume dynamics. Io's hyperactive nature is emphasized by the fact that two other volcanic plumes are also visible off the edge of Io's disk: Masubi at the 7 o'clock position, and a very faint plume, possibly from the volcano Zal, at the 10 o'clock position. Jupiter illuminates the night side of Io, and the most prominent feature visible on the disk is the dark horseshoe shape of the volcano Loki, likely an enormous lava lake. Boosaule Mons, which at 18 kilometers (11 miles) is the highest mountain on Io and one of the highest mountains in the solar system, pokes above the edge of the disk on the right side. The five images were obtained over an 8-minute span, with two minutes between frames, from 23:50 to 23:58 Universal Time on March 1, 2007. Io was 3.8 million kilometers (2.4 million miles) from New Horizons, the image is centered at Io coordinates 0 degrees north, 342 degrees west. The pictures were part of a sequence designed to look at Jupiter's rings, but planners included Io in the sequence because the moon was passing behind Jupiter's rings at the time.
A Look from LEISA
PIA09251
Sol (our sun)
LEISA
Title A Look from LEISA
Original Caption Released with Image Annotated Version On February 24, 2007, the LEISA (pronounced "Leesa") infrared spectral imager in the New Horizons Ralph instrument observed giant Jupiter in 250 narrow spectral channels. At the time the spacecraft was 6 million kilometers (nearly 4 million miles) from Jupiter, at that range, the LEISA imager can resolve structures about 400 kilometers (250 miles) across. LEISA observes in 250 infrared wavelengths, which range from 1.25 micrometers (µm) to 2.50 µm. The three images shown above from that dataset are at wavelengths of 1.27 µm (left), 1.53 µm (center) and 1.88 µm (right). The bright areas in the image frames are caused by solar radiation reflected from clouds and hazes in Jupiter's atmosphere. Dark areas correspond to atmospheric regions where solar radiation is absorbed before it can be reflected. The dark circular feature in the upper left of all three images is the shadow of Jupiter's innermost large moon, Io. Light at 1.53 µm (center frame) comes from relatively high in the atmosphere. The other two channels probe deeper atmospheric levels. Features that are bright in all three pictures come from high-altitude clouds. Features that are bright in the 1.27 and 1.88 µm channels, but darker in the 1.53-µm channel come from lower clouds. For example, there is an isolated circular feature (the "Little Red Spot") in the lower left of the 1.53-µm image. In the 1.27 and 1.88 µm data, this circular feature is surrounded by other structures. The implication is that the "Little Red Spot" is caused by a system that extends far up into the atmosphere, while other structures are lower. At closest approach to Jupiter on February 28, at a distance of about 2.5 million kilometers (1.4 million miles), LEISA's resolution was about three times better than it was on February 24. LEISA images made at that far-better resolution are still stored in the spacecraft's data recorder, awaiting downlink from New Horizons.
A Look from LEISA
PIA09251
Sol (our sun)
LEISA
Title A Look from LEISA
Original Caption Released with Image Annotated Version On February 24, 2007, the LEISA (pronounced "Leesa") infrared spectral imager in the New Horizons Ralph instrument observed giant Jupiter in 250 narrow spectral channels. At the time the spacecraft was 6 million kilometers (nearly 4 million miles) from Jupiter, at that range, the LEISA imager can resolve structures about 400 kilometers (250 miles) across. LEISA observes in 250 infrared wavelengths, which range from 1.25 micrometers (µm) to 2.50 µm. The three images shown above from that dataset are at wavelengths of 1.27 µm (left), 1.53 µm (center) and 1.88 µm (right). The bright areas in the image frames are caused by solar radiation reflected from clouds and hazes in Jupiter's atmosphere. Dark areas correspond to atmospheric regions where solar radiation is absorbed before it can be reflected. The dark circular feature in the upper left of all three images is the shadow of Jupiter's innermost large moon, Io. Light at 1.53 µm (center frame) comes from relatively high in the atmosphere. The other two channels probe deeper atmospheric levels. Features that are bright in all three pictures come from high-altitude clouds. Features that are bright in the 1.27 and 1.88 µm channels, but darker in the 1.53-µm channel come from lower clouds. For example, there is an isolated circular feature (the "Little Red Spot") in the lower left of the 1.53-µm image. In the 1.27 and 1.88 µm data, this circular feature is surrounded by other structures. The implication is that the "Little Red Spot" is caused by a system that extends far up into the atmosphere, while other structures are lower. At closest approach to Jupiter on February 28, at a distance of about 2.5 million kilometers (1.4 million miles), LEISA's resolution was about three times better than it was on February 24. LEISA images made at that far-better resolution are still stored in the spacecraft's data recorder, awaiting downlink from New Horizons.
Alice Views Jupiter and Io
PIA09252
Sol (our sun)
Alice UVS
Title Alice Views Jupiter and Io
Original Caption Released with Image This graphic illustrates the pointing and shows the data from one of many observations made by the New Horizons Alice ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS) instrument during the Pluto-bound spacecraft's recent encounter with Jupiter. The red lines in the graphic show the scale, orientation, and position of the combined "box and slot" field of view of the Alice UVS during this observation. The positions of Jupiter's volcanic moon, Io, the torus of ionized gas from Io, and Jupiter are shown relative to the Alice field of view. Like a prism, the spectrometer separates light from these targets into its constituent wavelengths. Io's volcanoes produce an extremely tenuous atmosphere made up primarily of sulfur dioxide gas, which, in the harsh plasma environment at Io, breaks down into its component sulfur and oxygen atoms. Alice observed the auroral glow from these atoms in Io's atmosphere and their ionized counterparts in the Io torus. 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."
A Brilliant Plume
PIA09250
Jupiter
LORRI
Title A Brilliant Plume
Original Caption Released with Image 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.
A Burst of Color
PIA09254
Jupiter
MVIC
Title A Burst of Color
Original Caption Released with Image New Horizons captured this unique view of Jupiter's moon Io with its color camera -- the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) -- at 00:25 UT on March 1, 2007, from a range of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). The image is centered at Io coordinates 4 degrees south, 162 degrees west, and was taken shortly before the complementary Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) photo of Io released on March 13 (see PIA09250 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09250 ]), which had higher resolution but was not in color. As in the LORRI picture, this processed image shows the nighttime glow of the Tvashtar volcano and its plume rising 330 kilometers (200 miles) into sunlight above Io's north pole. However, the MVIC picture reveals the intense red of the glowing lava at the plume source and the contrasting blue of the fine dust particles in the plume (similar to the bluish color of smoke), as well as more subtle colors on Io's sunlit crescent. The lower parts of the plume in Io's shadow, lit only by the much fainter light from Jupiter, are almost invisible in this rendition. Contrast has been reduced to show the large range of brightness between the plume and Io's disk. A component of the Ralph imaging instrument, MVIC has three broadband color filters: blue (480 nanometers), red (620 nm) and infrared (850 nm), as well as a narrow methane filter (890 nm). Because the camera was designed for the dim illumination at Pluto, not the much brighter sunlight at Jupiter, the red and infrared filters are overexposed on Io's dayside. This image is therefore composed from the blue and methane filters only, and the colors shown are only approximations to those that the eye would see. Nevertheless, the human eye would easily see the red color of the volcano and the blue color of the plume.
The Colors of the Night
PIA09264
Jupiter
MVIC
Title The Colors of the Night
Original Caption Released with Image The New Horizons Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) took this image of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io at 04:30 Universal Time on February 28, 2007, about one hour before New Horizons' closest approach to Jupiter, from a range of 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles). Part of the Ralph imaging instrument, MVIC is designed for the very faint solar illumination at Pluto, and is too sensitive to image the brightly lit daysides of Jupiter's moons. Io's dayside is therefore completely overexposed in this image, and appears white and featureless. However, the Jupiter-lit nightside of Io and the giant plume from the Tvashtar volcano are well exposed, and the versions of the image shown here have been processed to bring out each of these features. The scale of the original image is 53 kilometers (33 miles) per pixel, Io itself has a diameter of 3,630 kilometers (2,250 miles). The nightside of Io (left panel) is illuminated brightly enough by Jupiter to reveal many details in full color to MVIC's sensitive vision. The nightside color has been corrected to account for the greenish hue of Jupiter's light as seen by MVIC -- see the April 2 Featured Image of Io and Europa (PIA09256 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09256 ]) -- so the colors approximate what the human eye would see in daylight illumination. The image shows Io's reddish-brown polar areas and the yellow and white colors of its equatorial regions, mostly due to various forms of sulfur. Several dark volcanic centers are also visible -- the most prominent, appearing as an elongated spot just above and to the right of the disk's center, is called Fjorgynn. Near the disk center, just over the night side of the terminator (the line separating day and night), is a row of three or four pale yellow patches, which likely are volcanic plumes catching the setting sun. These features have caught the attention of New Horizons scientists because no major plumes have been seen previously in this region of Io, and it is rare for Io's plumes to cluster so closely together. The right panel shows the bluish color of the plume from Tvashtar, rising above the overexposed edge of Io's disk at the 11 o'clock position. The plume is blue because it contains fine dust that preferentially scatters blue light, in the same way that smoke appears blue. The red line on the edge of the disk, below the plume, is an artifact caused by the overexposure of Io's surface. The image is centered at Io coordinates 26 degrees west, 6 degrees south, and is produced using MVIC's blue, red and near-infrared filters. In the original image, the overexposure of Io's dayside hemisphere caused extensive electronic "blooming" of the image toward the left and bottom edges of the frame, and this has been removed from the versions shown here.
Io and Ganymede
PIA09239
Sol (our sun)
LORRI
Title Io and Ganymede
Original Caption Released with Image The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took this 4-millisecond exposure of Jupiter and two of its moons at 01:41:04 UTC on January 17, 2007. The spacecraft was 68.5 million kilometers (42.5 million miles) from Jupiter, closing in on the giant planet at 41,500 miles (66,790 kilometers) per hour. The volcanic moon Io is the closest planet to the right of Jupiter, the icy moon Ganymede is to Io's right. The shadows of each satellite are visible atop Jupiter's clouds, Ganymede's shadow is draped over Jupiter's northwestern limb. Ganymede's average orbit distance from Jupiter is about 1.07 million kilometers (620,000 miles), Io's is 422,000 kilometers (262,000 miles). Both Io and Ganymede are larger than Earth's moon, Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury.
On Approach: Jupiter and Io
PIA09235
Sol (our sun)
LORRI
Title On Approach: Jupiter and Io
Original Caption Released with Image Click on the image for movie of On Approach: Jupiter and Io 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.
Ganymede's Shadow
PIA09237
Sol (our sun)
LORRI
Title Ganymede's Shadow
Original Caption Released with Image The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took this photo of Jupiter at 20:42:01 UTC on January 9, 2007, when the spacecraft was 80 million kilometers (49.6 million miles) from the giant planet. The volcanic moon Io is to the left of the planet, the shadow of the icy moon Ganymede moves across Jupiter's northern hemisphere. Ganymede's average orbit distance from Jupiter is about 1 million kilometers (620,000 miles), Io's is 422,000 kilometers (262,000 miles). Both Io and Ganymede are larger than Earth's moon, Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury.
An Eruption on Io
PIA09244
Jupiter
LORRI
Title An Eruption on Io
Original Caption Released with Image The first images returned to Earth by New Horizons during its close encounter with Jupiter feature the Galilean moon Io, snapped with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 0840 UTC on February 26, while the moon was 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from the spacecraft. Io is intensely heated by its tidal interaction with Jupiter and is thus extremely volcanically active. That activity is evident in these images, which reveal an enormous dust plume, more than 150 miles high, erupting from the volcano Tvashtar. The plume appears as an umbrella-shaped feature of the edge of Io's disk in the 11 o'clock position in the right image, which is a long-exposure (20-millisecond) frame designed specifically to look for plumes like this. The bright spots at 2 o'clock are high mountains catching the setting sun, beyond them the night side of Io can be seen, faintly illuminated by light reflected from Jupiter itself. The left image is a shorter exposure -- 3 milliseconds -- designed to look at surface features. In this frame, the Tvashtar volcano shows as a dark spot, also at 11 o'clock, surrounded by a large dark ring, where an area larger than Texas has been covered by fallout from the giant eruption. This is the clearest view yet of a plume from Tvashtar, one of Io's most active volcanoes. Ground-based telescopes and the Galileo Jupiter orbiter first spotted volcanic heat radiation from Tvashtar in November 1999, and the Cassini spacecraft saw a large plume when it flew past Jupiter in December 2000. The Keck telescope in Hawaii picked up renewed heat radiation from Tvashtar in spring 2006, and just two weeks ago the Hubble Space Telescope saw the Tvashtar plume in ultraviolet images designed to support the New Horizons flyby. Most of those images will be stored onboard the spacecraft for downlink to Earth in March and April.
Ganymede
PIA09245
Jupiter
LORRI
Title Ganymede
Original Caption Released with Image This is New Horizons' best image of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, taken with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera at 10:01 Universal Time on February 27 from a range of 3.5 million kilometers (2.2 million miles). The longitude of the disk center is 38 degrees West and the image scale is 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. Dark patches of ancient terrain are broken up by swaths of brighter, younger material, and the entire icy surface is peppered by more recent impact craters that have splashed fresh, bright ice across the surface. With a diameter of 5,268 kilometers (3.273 miles), Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system. This is one of a handful of Jupiter system images already returned by New Horizons during its close approach to Jupiter. Most of the data being gathered by the spacecraft are stored onboard and will be downlinked to Earth during March and April 2007.
Moons around Jupiter
PIA09238
Sol (our sun)
LORRI
Title Moons around Jupiter
Original Caption Released with Image The New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took this photo of Jupiter at 20:42:01 UTC on January 9, 2007, when the spacecraft was 80 million kilometers (49.6 million miles) from the giant planet. The volcanic moon Io is to the left of the planet, the shadow of the icy moon Ganymede moves across Jupiter's northern hemisphere. Ganymede's average orbit distance from Jupiter is about 1 million kilometers (620,000 miles), Io's is 422,000 kilometers (262,000 miles). Both Io and Ganymede are larger than Earth's moon, Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury.
Europa
PIA09246
Jupiter
LORRI
Title Europa
Original Caption Released with Image This image of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, the first Europa image returned by New Horizons, was taken with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera at 07:19 Universal Time on February 27, from a range of 3.1 million kilometers (1.9 million miles). The longitude of the disk center is 307 degrees West and the image scale is 15 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel. This is one of a series of images designed to look for landforms near Europa's terminator -- the line dividing day and night -- where low Sun angles highlight subtle topographic features. Europa's fractured icy surface is thought to overlie an ocean about 100 kilometers (60 miles) below the surface, and the New Horizons team will be analyzing these images for clues about the nature of the icy crust and the forces that have deformed it. Europa is about the size of Earth's moon, with a diameter of 3,130 kilometers (1.945 miles). This is one of a handful of images of the Jupiter system already returned by New Horizons during its close approach to Jupiter. Most of the data being gathered by the spacecraft are stored onboard and will be downlinked to Earth during March and April 2007.
Jupiter's Moons: Family Port …
PIA09352
Sol (our sun)
LORRI
Title Jupiter's Moons: Family Portrait
Original Caption Released with Image This montage shows the best views of Jupiter's four large and diverse "Galilean" satellites as seen by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on the New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby of Jupiter in late February 2007. The four moons are, from left to right: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. The images have been scaled to represent the true relative sizes of the four moons and are arranged in their order from Jupiter. Io, 3,640 kilometers (2,260 miles) in diameter, was imaged at 03:50 Universal Time on February 28 from a range of 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles). The original image scale was 13 kilometers per pixel, and the image is centered at Io coordinates 6 degrees south, 22 degrees west. Io is notable for its active volcanism, which New Horizons has studied extensively. Europa, 3,120 kilometers (1,938 miles) in diameter, was imaged at 01:28 Universal Time on February 28 from a range of 3 million kilometers (1.8 million miles). The original image scale was 15 kilometers per pixel, and the image is centered at Europa coordinates 6 degrees south, 347 degrees west. Europa's smooth, icy surface likely conceals an ocean of liquid water. New Horizons obtained data on Europa's surface composition and imaged subtle surface features, and analysis of these data may provide new information about the ocean and the icy shell that covers it. New Horizons spied Ganymede, 5,262 kilometers (3,268 miles) in diameter, at 10:01 Universal Time on February 27 from 3.5 million kilometers (2.2 million miles) away. The original scale was 17 kilometers per pixel, and the image is centered at Ganymede coordinates 6 degrees south, 38 degrees west. Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, has a dirty ice surface cut by fractures and peppered by impact craters. New Horizons' infrared observations may provide insight into the composition of the moon's surface and interior. Callisto, 4,820 kilometers (2,995 miles) in diameter, was imaged at 03:50 Universal Time on February 28 from a range of 4.2 million kilometers (2.6 million miles). The original image scale was 21 kilometers per pixel, and the image is centered at Callisto coordinates 4 degrees south, 356 degrees west. Scientists are using the infrared spectra New Horizons gathered of Callisto's ancient, cratered surface to calibrate spectral analysis techniques that will help them to understand the surfaces of Pluto and its moon Charon when New Horizons passes them in 2015.
Tvashtar Composite
PIA09359
Jupiter
LORRI
Title Tvashtar Composite
Original Caption Released with Image Variations in the appearance of the giant plume from the Tvashtar volcano on Jupiter's moon Io are seen in this composite of the best photos taken by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) during its Jupiter flyby in late February-early March 2007. New Horizons was fortunate to witness this unusually large plume during its brief Jupiter flyby, the Galileo Jupiter orbiter spent more than five years imaging the volcanic moon (between 1996 and 2001) without ever capturing such detailed pictures of a large Io plume. The plume is roughly 330 kilometers (200 miles) high. The cause of the fine wispy structure in the plume, which varies strikingly from image to image, is unknown, but these pictures may help scientists to understand the phenomenon. The pictures were taken at distances ranging from 3.1 to 2.3 million kilometers (1.9 to 1.4 million miles), but they have been scaled to show the plume at the same relative size in every frame. Illumination conditions also vary: in the final image, Io's shadow cuts across the plume and hides all but its topmost regions, and the glow of hot lava can be seen on the nightside at the source of the plume. The times of the images, from top to bottom, are: February 26, 18:38 (Universal Time), February 26, 21:01, February 28, 03:50, February 28, 04:40, February 28, 11:04, and March 1, 00:35.
Europa Rising
PIA09361
Jupiter
LORRI
Title Europa Rising
Original Caption Released with Image New Horizons took this image of the icy moon Europa rising above Jupiter's cloud tops with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 11:48 Universal Time on February 28, 2007, six hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter. The picture was one of a handful of the Jupiter system that New Horizons took primarily for artistic, rather than scientific, value. This particular scene was suggested by space enthusiast Richard Hendricks of Austin, Texas, in response to an Internet request by New Horizons scientists for evocative, artistic imaging opportunities at Jupiter. The spacecraft was 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Jupiter and 3 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Europa when the picture was taken. Europa's diameter is 3,120 kilometers (1,939 miles). The image is centered on Europa coordinates 5 degrees south, 6 degrees west. In keeping with its artistic intent - and to provide a more dramatic perspective - the image has been rotated so south is at the top.
Io in Eclipse 2
PIA09354
Jupiter
LORRI
Title Io in Eclipse 2
Original Caption Released with Image This image of Io eclipsed by Jupiter's shadow is a combination of several images taken by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) between 09:35 and 09:41 Universal Time on February 27, 2007, about 28 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter. North is at the top of the image. In the darkness, only glowing hot lava, auroral displays in Io's tenuous atmosphere and the moon's volcanic plumes are visible. The brightest points of light in the image are the glow of incandescent lava at several active volcanoes. The three brightest volcanoes south of the equator are, from left to right, Pele, Reiden and Marduk. North of the equator, near the disk center, a previously unknown volcano near 22 degrees north, 233 degrees west glows brightly. (The dark streak to its right is an artifact.) The edge of Io's disk is outlined by the auroral glow produced as intense radiation from Jupiter's magnetosphere bombards the atmosphere. The glow is patchy because the atmosphere itself is patchy, being denser over active volcanoes. At the 1 o'clock position the giant glowing plume from the Tvashtar volcano rises 330 kilometers (200 miles) above the edge of the disk, and several smaller plumes are also visible as diffuse glows scattered across the disk. Bright glows at the edge of Io on the left and right sides of the disk mark regions where electrical currents connect Io to Jupiter's magnetosphere. New Horizons was 2.8 million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from Io when this picture was taken, and the image is centered at Io coordinates 2 degrees south, 238 degrees west. The image has been heavily processed to remove scattered light from Jupiter, but some artifacts remain, including a horizontal seam where two sets of frames were pieced together. Total exposure time for this image was 56 seconds.
Io in Eclipse
PIA09353
Jupiter
LORRI
Title Io in Eclipse
Original Caption Released with Image This unusual image shows Io glowing in the darkness of Jupiter's shadow. It is a combination of eight images taken by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) between 14:25 and 14:55 Universal Time on February 27, 2007, about 15 hours before the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter. North is at the top of the image. Io's surface is invisible in the darkness, but the image reveals glowing hot lava, auroral displays in Io's tenuous atmosphere and volcanic plumes across the moon. The three bright points of light on the right side of Io are incandescent lava at active volcanoes - Pele and Reiden (south of the equator), and a previously unknown volcano near 22 degrees north, 233 degrees west near the edge of the disk at the 2 o'clock position. An auroral glow, produced as intense radiation from Jupiter's magnetosphere bombards Io's atmosphere, outlines the edge of the moon's disk. The glow is patchy because the atmosphere itself is patchy, being denser over active volcanoes. In addition to the near-surface glow, there is a remarkable auroral glow suspended 330 kilometers (200 miles) above the edge of the disk at the 2 o'clock position, perhaps this glowing gas was ejected from the new volcano below it. Another glowing gas plume, above a fainter point of light, is visible just inside Io's disk near the 6 o'clock position, this plume is above another new volcanic eruption discovered by New Horizons. On the left side of the disk, near Io's equator, a cluster of faint dots of light is centered near the point on Io that always faces Jupiter. This is the region where electrical currents connect Io to Jupiter's magnetosphere. It is likely that electrical connections to individual volcanoes are causing the glows seen here, though the details are mysterious. Total exposure time for this image was 16 seconds. The range to Io was 2.8 million kilometers (1.7 million miles), and the image is centered at Io coordinates 7 degrees south, 306 degrees west. The image has been heavily processed to remove scattered light from Jupiter, but some artifacts remain, such as dark patches in the background.
Io Through Different 'Eyes'
PIA09358
Jupiter
LEISA, LORRI, MVIC
Title Io Through Different 'Eyes'
Original Caption Released with Image This montage demonstrates New Horizons' ability to observe the same target in complementary ways using its diverse suite of instruments. Previously released views taken at visible and slightly longer infrared wavelengths with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), New Horizons' high-resolution black-and-white camera, and the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), its color camera, are here compared with a nearly simultaneous view from the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA), which observes its targets in more than 200 separate wavelengths of infrared light. This color LEISA view of Io (bottom right) combines three wavelength ranges, centered at 1.80, 2.04, and 2.31 micrometers. The LORRI image (left) shows fine details on Io's sunlit crescent and in the partially sunlit plume from the Tvashtar volcano, and reveals the bright nighttime glow of the hot lavas at the source of the Tvashtar plume. The MVIC image (top right) shows the contrasting colors of the red lava and blue plume at Tvashtar, and the sulfur and sulfur dioxide deposits on Io's sunlit surface. The LEISA image shows that the glow of the Tvashtar volcano is even more intense at infrared wavelengths and reveals the infrared glow of at least 10 fainter volcanic hot spots on the moon's nightside. The brightest of these, Amirani/Maui, which is visible to the lower right of Tvashtar, is less than 4% as bright as Tvashtar. All of these are long-lived hot spots that have been observed previously by the Galileo orbiter. Further analysis of the LEISA data will provide information on the volcanoes' temperatures, and data on the sunlit crescent of Io will reveal details of Io's surface composition. The LORRI, MVIC and LEISA images were taken March 1, 2007, at 00:35, 00:25 and 00:31 Universal Time, respectively, from a range of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). The images are centered at Io coordinates 4 degrees south, 164 degrees west.
Ganymede in Visible and Infr …
PIA09356
Jupiter
LEISA, LORRI
Title Ganymede in Visible and Infrared Light
Original Caption Released with Image This montage compares New Horizons' best views of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, gathered with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) and its infrared spectrometer, the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA). LEISA observes its targets in more than 200 separate wavelengths of infrared light, allowing detailed analysis of their surface composition. The LEISA image shown here combines just three of these wavelengths -- 1.3, 1.8 and 2.0 micrometers -- to highlight differences in composition across Ganymede's surface. Blue colors represent relatively clean water ice, while brown colors show regions contaminated by dark material. The right panel combines the high-resolution grayscale LORRI image with the color-coded compositional information from the LEISA image, producing a picture that combines the best of both data sets. The LEISA and LORRI images were taken at 9:48 and 10:01 Universal Time, respectively, on February 27, 2007, from a range of 3.5 million kilometers (2.2 million miles). The longitude of the disk center is 38 degrees west. With a diameter of 5,268 kilometers (3,273 miles), Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system.
A "Plumefall" on Io
PIA09360
Jupiter
LORRI
Title A "Plumefall" on Io
Original Caption Released with Image New Horizons took this image of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 15:15 Universal Time on February 28, 2007, nearly 10 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter. The image is centered at Io coordinates 5 degrees south, 92 degrees west, and the spacecraft was 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Io. Io's diameter is 3,640 kilometers (2,262 miles). Io's dayside was deliberately overexposed in this image to bring out details on the nightside and in any volcanic plumes that might be present. Io cooperated by producing an enormous plume, 330 kilometers (200 miles) high, from the volcano Tvashtar. Near Io's north pole, Tvashtar was active throughout New Horizons' Jupiter encounter. In this image, volcanic debris from the plume, illuminated by the setting sun, rains down onto Io's nightside. Hot, glowing lava at the source of the plume is the bright point of light on the sunlit side of the terminator (the line separating day and night). Elsewhere along the terminator, mountains catch the setting sun. The nightside of Io is lit up by light reflected from Jupiter.
Tvashtar Movie
PIA09357
Jupiter
LORRI
Title Tvashtar Movie
Original Caption Released with Image "" Click on the image for QuickTime movie of Tvashtar Movie Using its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), the New Horizons spacecraft captured the two frames in this "movie" of the 330-kilometer (200-mile) high Tvashtar volcanic eruption plume on Jupiter's moon Io on February 28, 2007, from a range of 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles). The two images were taken 50 minutes apart, at 03:50 and 04:40 Universal Time, and because particles in the plume take an estimated 30 minutes to fall back to the surface after being ejected by the central volcano, each image likely shows an entirely different set of particles. The details of the plume structure look quite different in each frame, though the overall brightness and size of the plume remain constant. Surface details on the nightside of Io, faintly illuminated by Jupiter, show the 5-degree change in Io's central longitude, from 22 to 27 degrees west, between the two frames.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. ? …
Description KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. ? At the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Skid Strip, workers begin to offload the first stage of an Atlas V rocket from a Russian air cargo plane. The Atlas V is the launch vehicle for the New Horizons spacecraft. New Horizons is designed to help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of Pluto and Charon - a "double planet" and the last planet in our solar system to be visited by spacecraft. The mission will then visit one or more objects in the Kuiper Belt region beyond Neptune. New Horizons is scheduled to launch from Launch Complex 41 at CCAFS in January 2006, swing past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February or March 2007, and reach Pluto and its moon, Charon, in July 2015.
Release Date 09/08/2005
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