A stunning view of Jupiter, as seen by Voyager 1

Bjorn Jonsson put this image together using raw images from Voyager 1 as it was coming up to Jupiter. Images were taken 2/27/1979. You can clearly see Jupiter's moons Europa and Io.



Full resolution: www.unmannedspaceflight.com...

From Bjorn's post on www.unmannedspaceflight.com:

"A significant amount of details is visible on the satellites. Icy Europa looks very bright compared to Jupiter, mainly because it's silhouetted against a region not far from Jupiter's terminator. Some familiar features are visible on Io.

The images were obtained from a range of 7.3 million km on February 27, 1979. This is slightly closer than in the big mosaic above that includes the Great Red Spot and makes this the highest resolution global Voyager mosaic of Jupiter that I know of (there is a Cassini mosaic where the resolution is slightly higher though). Voyager 1 was imaging Jupiter through orange and violet filters so I had to make synthetic green and do some color processing to get something resembling an RGB image. I used 14 orange/violet image pairs (28 images). Overall the color and contrast should be fairly accurate."

reply to post by wildespace


Wow! Another one for my collection. Absolutely stunning!

Thank you for posting this.

I believe I used that picture for my 8th grade science project "The Planets Plus".... and I ended up with an Honorable Mention.

I was also spreading disinformation back in 8th grade.... saying things like, "The sky on Mars is Red.... Pluto is the farthest planet.... there are only 9 planets..... "

I think NASA owes me an apology for my placement in that science fair. I came in behind a guy doing a project on Cranberries!!

I may even seek punitive damages.

reply to post by wildespace


cool stuff,
jupiter is a gas giant, no? does that mean we can never land a probe on it? or at least ever cause a spark when we land , poof heh.

but no really , its got all the hydrogen and nothing has set it on fire yet, i dont get that.

neither do i! in fact i dont believe its made of gas at all. the idea just does not sit right with me, along with a few other hypotheses like big bang and black holes.

reply to post by JibbyJedi
Thats the society of today putting the plight of cranberries over awesome pictures of our planetary neighbours.

Originally posted by ~widowmaker~
reply to post by wildespace

 

cool stuff,
jupiter is a gas giant, no? does that mean we can never land a probe on it? or at least ever cause a spark when we land , poof heh.

but no really , its got all the hydrogen and nothing has set it on fire yet, i dont get that.

We can send a probe into Jupiter, and we already have with an atmospheric probe from the Galileo orbiter. The probe sent back data for almost 60 minutes before it was crushed by pressure.

Inside Jupiter, pressure of the gasses become so great that they turn to liquid and perhaps even solid in the core.

Nothing can set Jupiter on fire if there's no oxygen.

reply to post by wildespace


wow thats some cool stuff, yah i know they sent the probe in, i dint know it was droped down to it and crushed that cool to know, wont be taking that trip heh.

"Nothing can set Jupiter on fire if there's no oxygen"

just another question, how much oxygen is on the sun ^^

just kidding i know its not really burning, but that what i was thinking when setting it on fire, like it would turn to a sun or something and start nuclear fusion heh ^^

That is a really nice photo, thanx for the share.

Very nice! I can imagine hanging out on Europa in the future and looking up at the swirling storms of Jupiter in the sky! What a sight that will be.

Thank You for the pic. Breaks my heart that I'll never get to see this sort of thing from the window of a ship. Hopefully my children and grandchildren will continue my fascination with space and jump at the chance to go when it comes.

Isn't it interesting that all of the materials in our solar system from the various planets, make tera-forming Mars possible?

Go figure.

EPIC picture my friend just can't help but stare in awe at it. Got myself a new screen saver now, thanks.

Originally posted by WormwoodSquirm
Very nice! I can imagine hanging out on Europa in the future and looking up at the swirling storms of Jupiter in the sky! What a sight that will be.

It would look spectacular, being 12 degrees across (24 times larger than the full moon). Europa is tidally locked to Jupiter, so Jupiter never moves in Europa's sky, it stays in one place. You can simulate the view in Stellarium:

Originally posted by ~widowmaker~
reply to post by wildespace

 

cool stuff,
jupiter is a gas giant, no? does that mean we can never land a probe on it? or at least ever cause a spark when we land , poof heh.

but no really , its got all the hydrogen and nothing has set it on fire yet, i dont get that.

Oxygen it seems, Jupiter is deemed to have none, or rather very little.

reply to post by ~widowmaker~
So far 8 space probes have been to Jupiter: The first one was Pioneer 10 in 1973, followed by Pioneer 11 in 1974, Voyagers 1 and 2 in 1979, Ulysses in 1992, Galileo in 1995, Cassini in 2000, and New Horizons in 2007.

Further probes planned are the Juno space probe, due to launch sometime in 2011, and the Europa Jupiter System Mission, planned for 2020.

WikiAnswer

Mind blowing!!!

Thanks for posting.

reply to post by wildespace


NICE! But, tell me, Jupiter is supposed to have 63 moons. I only see two in this image. The other 61 moons can't all be on the other side, can they?

Originally posted by jiggerj
reply to post by wildespace

 

NICE! But, tell me, Jupiter is supposed to have 63 moons. I only see two in this image. The other 61 moons can't all be on the other side, can they?

The other big ones are out-of-frame. The other 5-dozen are too small to see at this scale, even if they were in-frame (which they are not).

Originally posted by wildespace

Originally posted by WormwoodSquirm
Very nice! I can imagine hanging out on Europa in the future and looking up at the swirling storms of Jupiter in the sky! What a sight that will be.

It would look spectacular, being 12 degrees across (24 times larger than the full moon). Europa is tidally locked to Jupiter, so Jupiter never moves in Europa's sky, it stays in one place. You can simulate the view in Stellarium:

Very nice, except that Jupiter - being a big, sunlit object - would be so bright that it would kill your dark-adaptation and require short-exposure to photograph, so the stars would not be visible to either your eyes or a camera. Curse you, reality!