NASA's Juno mission at Jupiter is going to do a flyby over the giant planet starting tonight at 9:55 p.m. EDT. This flyover is going to take the spacecraft directly over Jupiter's "Great Red Spot" (GRS) which is a swirling weather system in the planet's clouds that has been ongoing for hundreds of years and is huge.
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This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, during its closest approach to the giant planet at a distance of approximately 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles).
Credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
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Juno will train all 8 of its instruments and the JunoCam on the GRS during the flyby and will be about 5,600 miles above the clouds at closest approach. In other words, this will be the closest and quite possibly the best view humanity has ever had of the GRS!
The images are expected to be available on July 14th. You can see raw JunoCam images and download them yourself for processing.
The public votes on JunoCam Points of Interest (POIs) during each of the Jovian flybys and amateur astronomers can submit images taken of Jupiter to help the Juno team in flyby preparation.
Juno celebrated its 1st year in Jupiter orbit on the 4th of July.
Be sure to see some of my previous blog entries that showed the haunting images obtained by Juno during previous flybys.
Jupiter is visible in the South right after sunset; it is the brightest "star-like"object in the night sky. Take a peek tonight and wish Juno a great flyby and good data/pictures.
You can follow Juno on Twitter and Facebook.
Sky Guy in VA
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