It has never been easier to get lost in outer space, or visit Jupiter through amazing images that is. As young children we are fascinated by space and its greatness, but why should we stop dreaming as we grow older?
Thanks to the NASA Juno spacecraft and its JunoCam, all of us get the chance to keep that dream alive and go exploring the biggest gas giant in our solar system up close and personal. In fact, approximately every 53 days, the spacecraft flies by the planet with its camera taking snapshots before transmitting them back to Earth. NASA and the Southwest Research Institute share the raw data, allowing everyone to take part in the post-processing and thereby contribute to the collection of beautiful close ups of the striped giant.
Juno, the spacecraft, has been in its orbit around Jupiter since mid 2016 and will stay there up until mid 2021 when it will de-orbit towards Jupiter and be eaten by the planet. Up until then we can all look forward to it providing us with data, answering our questions regarding the formation of our planetary system and of course it will keep sending us images allowing all of us to keep that dream of space alive.
Are you ready to take part in this journey? The NASA image gallery is one place to start.
- -NASA’s $1 Billion Spacecraft Has Taken Mind-Bending New Photos Of Jupiter. 20200408 from https://physics-astronomyblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/nasas-1-billion-spacecraft-has-taken.html?m=1
- – JPL. Mission to Jupiter: Juno. About the mission. 20200408 from https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/juno/