May 30, 2017

Take an HD Ride around Jupiter [Video]

An exquisite time-lapse of our local, surprisingly complex gas giant

NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS, Gabriel Fiset

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

What follows needs very little description. For several months NASA's Juno mission has been swooping across Jupiter's polar regions during great elliptical orbits around this massive world. It recently completed pass number 6 (or Perijove number 6, for closest passage).

Juno imagery is unusual in that it's been pushed out to the public with a rapid turnaround, and with encouragement to have at it - to play with the data to see what features reveal themselves.

Here, in what may be the best yet, Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran have performed a magnificent piece of image processing from the latest Juno data dump. Images have been tweaked to enhance visible textures, with a little bit of liberty taken with the color table, and then stitched together to make a jaw-dropping, mind-blowing HD movie of Juno's view of Jupiter.

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Our Jove, the king planet, is alien, beautiful, imposing, and truly grand.

Credit: NASA, SwRI, MSSS , Gerald Eichstädt, Seán Doran. Music by Ligeti.

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