We’re About to Get Our Closest Look at Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Binary_Bark

Binary_Bark

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When the Juno mission reached Jupiter on July 5th, 2016, it became the second mission in history to establish orbit around the Solar System’s largest planet. And in the course of it conducting its many orbits, it has revealed some interesting things about Jupiter. This has included information about its atmosphere, meteorological phenomena, gravity, and its powerful magnetic fields.

And today – on Monday, July 10th at 7:06 p.m. PDT (11:06 p.m. EDT) – just days after the probe celebrated its first year of orbiting the planet, the Juno mission passed directly over Jupiter’s most famous feature – the Great Red Spot. This massive anticyclonic storm has been a focal point for centuries, and Juno’s scheduled flyby was the closest any mission has ever come to it.

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot was first observed during the late 17th century, either by Robert Hooke or Giovanni Cassini. By 1830, astronomers began monitoring this anticyclonic storm, and have noted periodic expansions and regressions in its size ever since. Today, it is 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) in diameter and reaches wind speeds of 120 meters per second (432 km/h; 286 mph) at the edges.

As part of its sixth orbit of Jupiter’s turbulent cloud tops, Juno passed close to Jupiter’s center (aka. perijove), which took place at 6:55 p.m. PDT (9:55 p.m. EDT). Eleven minutes later – at 7:06 p.m. PDT (10:06 p.m. EDT) – the probe flew over the Great Red Spot. In the process, Juno was at a distance of just 9,000 km (5,600 miles) from the anticyclonic storm, which is the closest any spacecraft has ever flown to it.

During the flyby, Juno had all eight of its scientific instruments (as well its imager, the JunoCam) trained directly on the storm. With such an array aimed at this feature, NASA expects to learn more about what has been powering this storm for at least the past three and a half centuries. As Scott Bolton, the principal investigator of Juno at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), said prior to the event in a NASA press release:

“Jupiter’s mysterious Great Red Spot is probably the best-known feature of Jupiter. This monumental storm has raged on the Solar System’s biggest planet for centuries. Now, Juno and her cloud-penetrating science instruments will dive in to see how deep the roots of this storm go, and help us understand how this giant storm works and what makes it so special.”​
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More Here: https://www.universetoday.com/136402/get-closest-look-jupiters-great-red-spot/
 
Neoprod

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Pretty cool...looking forward to the big reveal. The energy required to keep it going must be immense.
 
Binary_Bark

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[video=youtube;SgEsf4QcR0Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgEsf4QcR0Q[/video]
 
Binary_Bark

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NASA probe successfully peers into Jupiter's Great Red Spot

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Jupiter's Great Red Spot is getting a closer look after a fly-by July 10 by a NASA spacecraft​

A NASA spacecraft, Juno, has successfully peered into the giant storm raging on Jupiter, known as the Great Red Spot, and its first pictures should be out in days, the US space agency said Tuesday.
"My latest Jupiter flyby is complete!" said a post on the @NASAJuno Twitter account.
"All science instruments and JunoCam were operating to collect data."
The unmanned spacecraft came closer than any before it to the iconic feature on the solar system's largest planet, the gas giant Jupiter.
Experts say the Great Red Spot is a massive storm—some 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) wide—that has been churning for centuries, but little is known about the forces driving it.
It has been monitored since 1830 and has possibly existed for more than 350 years.
The storm is believed to have been shrinking in recent years.
"For generations, people from all over the world and all walks of life have marveled over the Great Red Spot," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator on the Juno project.
"Now we are finally going to see what this storm looks like up close and personal."
The flyover took place July 10 at 9:55 pm (July 11 at 0155 GMT), as the spacecraft passed about 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) above the spot's coiling crimson clouds.
"Raw images will be posted in (the) coming days," the space agency said.
Juno launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and has been orbiting Jupiter for just over one year.
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Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-nasa-probe-successfully-peers-jupiter.html#jCp
 
Hamish McPanji

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crackersa said:
Pics or it didn't happen! :D
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5cb58622840e9e3e40d916f417fedeb3.jpg
 
Binary_Bark

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Here They are! New Juno Pictures of the Great Red Spot

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A few days ago, the Juno probe completed the closest flyby of Jupiter's infamous Great Red Spot ever conducted by a spacecraft. After an agonizing wait the photos are now in… and they are absolutely incredible.

NASA has posted all the raw images images from JunoCam online and is inviting the general public to apply their own image processing effects. The JunoCam acquires its images by capturing four separate "strips": red, green, blue and near-infrared. A final image is then generally constructed by an internal team that stitches together all these strips, but in this instance NASA is inviting the public to experiment with their own processing techniques.

Article: http://newatlas.com/juno-images-jupiter-great-red-spot/50469/

Full Gallery: https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/ju...ob_to=&phases[]=PERIJOVE+7&perpage=16
 
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