Jupiter Archives

September 19, 2019September 19, 2019 by Evan Gough

Yes, This is Actually the Shadow of Io Passing Across the Surface of Jupiter.

Io casts a crisp circular shadow on the the cloud tops in Jupiter's atmosphere in this JunoCam image processed by Kevin Gill. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

The JunoCam onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft continues to provide we Earthbound humans with a steady stream of stunning images of Jupiter. We can’t get enough of the gas giant’s hypnotic, other-worldly beauty. This image of Io passing over Jupiter is the latest one to awaken our sense of wonder.

This image was processed by Kevin Gill, a NASA software engineer who has produced other stunning images of Jupiter.

August 21, 2019August 23, 2019 by Matt Williams

AI Could Help the Europa Clipper Mission Make New Discoveries!

Artist's concept of a Europa Clipper mission. Credit: NASA/JPL

In 2023, NASA plans to launch the Europa Clipper mission, a robotic explorer that will study Jupiter’s enigmatic moon Europa. The purpose of this mission is to explore Europa’s ice shell and interior to learn more about the moon’s composition, geology, and interactions between the surface and subsurface. Most of all, the purpose of this mission is to shed light on whether or not life could exist within Europa’s interior ocean.

This presents numerous challenges, many of which arise from the fact that the Europa Clipper will be very far from Earth when it conducts its science operations. To address this, a team of researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Arizona State University (ASU) designed a series of machine-learning algorithms that will allow the mission to explore Europa with a degree of autonom.

June 28, 2019June 28, 2019 by Evan Gough

The Latest Insanely Beautiful Image of Jupiter Captured by Juno

This stunning image comes from the Juno spacecraft. Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created it using images from Juno's JunoCam imager. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

There’s something about Jupiter that mesmerizes those who gaze at it. It’s intricate, dazzling clouds are a visual representation of the laws of nature that’s hard to turn away from. And even though the Juno spacecraft has been at Jupiter for almost three years now, and has delivered thousands of images of the gas giant’s colourful, churning clouds, we can’t seem to satisfy our appetite.

June 5, 2019June 5, 2019 by David Dickinson

Is Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Vanishing as We Near Opposition 2019?

The changing face of Jupiter during opposition 2019. Image credit and copyright: Sharin Ahmad

Jupiter opposition season is nigh, and with it, the largest planet in our solar system and its iconic Great Red Spot present us with a key mystery.

Jupiter in 2019

Jupiter reaches opposition for 2019 on June 10^th. For an outer planet with an orbit exterior to the Earth, opposition simply means it’s ‘opposite’ to the Sun as seen from our Earthly vantage point. This means that Jupiter will rise in the east and dominate the sky throughout the June night, after the Sun sets in the west.

March 12, 2019March 12, 2019 by Evan Gough

Jupiter or Earth? Which One’s Which, and Why Do They Look so Similar?

Though Jupiter and Earth are wildly differing places, some things are the same on both worlds. Image Credit: NASA

Jupiter: a massive, lifeless gas giant out there on the other side of the asteroid belt. It’s a behemoth, containing 2.5 times as much mass as all the other planets combined. To top it off, it’s named after the Roman God of War.

Earth: a tiny rocky world, almost too close to the Sun, where life rises and falls, punctuated repeatedly by extinctions. Compared to Jupiter, it’s a gum-drop world: Jupiter is 317.8 times the mass of Earth. And Earth is named after a goddess in German paganism, or so we think.

“Out of all the complexity flows beauty…”
Norman Kuring, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

March 7, 2019March 7, 2019 by Susie Murph

Weekly Space Hangout: Mar 06, 2019 – Dr. Jeff Morgenthaler of the Planetary Science Institute

Hosts:
Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org)
Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier )
Dr. Pamela Gay (astronomycast.com / cosmoquest.org / @starstryder)

Jeff Morgenthaler, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, likes to think of himself as an experimental physicist whose laboratory opens to the sky. He has used a comet to measure the ionization lifetime of carbon, is using Io’s atmosphere as a probe of conditions in Jupiter’s magnetosphere and has constructed a small-aperture coronagraph to monitor measure Jupiter’s magnetospheric response to a large volcanic eruption on Io.

Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: Mar 06, 2019 – Dr. Jeff Morgenthaler of the Planetary Science Institute”

January 3, 2019January 3, 2019 by Matt Williams

Juno Saw One of Io’s Volcanoes Erupting During its Recent Flyby

An amazingly active Io, Jupiter's "pizza moon" shows multiple volcanoes and hot spots in this photo taken with Juno's infrared camera. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / ASI / INAF /JIRAM / Roman Tkachenko

Thanks to a mission extension, NASA’s Juno probe continues to orbit Jupiter, being only the second spacecraft in history to do so. Since it arrived around the gas giant on July 5th, 2016, Juno has managed to gather a great deal of information on Jupiter’s atmosphere, magnetic and gravity environment, and its interior structure.

In that time, the probe has also managed to capture some breathtaking images of Jupiter as well. But on December 21st, during the probe’s sixteenth orbit of the gas giant, the Juno probe changed things up when four of its cameras captured images of the Jovian moon Io, showcasing its polar regions and spotting what appeared to be a volcanic eruption.

October 25, 2018 by Evan Gough

Being Cassini. Experience What It Was Like to Fly Past Jupiter and Saturn and Their Moons

Europa and Io move across the face of Jupiter, with the Great Red Spot behind them. Image: NASA/JPL/Cassini, Kevin M. Gill

What would it be like to be onboard the Cassini orbiter as it made its way around Jupiter and Saturn and their moons? Pretty cool. Now a new video made from Cassini images pieces together parts of that stately journey.

Continue reading “Being Cassini. Experience What It Was Like to Fly Past Jupiter and Saturn and Their Moons”

October 10, 2018 by Matt Williams

Europa is Going to be Tough to Land on, it Could Have Towering Walls of Ice Spikes Across its Surface

The fascinating surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view, made from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. This is the color view of Europa from Galileo that shows the largest portion of the moon's surface at the highest resolution. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

Jupiter’s moon Europa has been the subject of fascination ever since the Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 missions passed through the system back in the 1970s. While the moon has no viable atmosphere and is bombarded by intense radiation from Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field, scientists believe that one of the most likely places to find life beyond Earth exists beneath its icy surface.

Little wonder then why multiple missions are being planned to study this moon up-close. However, if and when those missions reach Europa sometime in the next decade, they will have to contend with some sharp surface features that could make it hard to land. Such is the conclusion of a new study by researchers from Britain, the US and NASA’s Ames Research Center, which indicates that Europa’s surface is covered in bladed terrain.

Continue reading “Europa is Going to be Tough to Land on, it Could Have Towering Walls of Ice Spikes Across its Surface”

September 27, 2018September 27, 2018 by Evan Gough

JunoCam Wows Us Again With Detailed Images of the Great Red Spot

JunoCam captured these images of the Great Red Spot during the July 2017 fly-by of Jupiter. The composite images provide a richly-detailed look at the storm. Image: Sánchez-Lavega et al. 2018; composed by G. Eichstadt and J. Cowart

For almost 200 years humans have been watching the Great Red Spot (GRS) on Jupiter and wondering what’s behind it. Thanks to NASA’s Juno mission, we’ve been getting better and better looks at it. New images from JunoCam reveal some of the deeper detail in our Solar System’s longest-lived storm.

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