NASA’s Juno mission has captured countless images of Jupiter, and what better way to make use of them than by creating a breathtaking time-lapse video? To accomplish this, scientist Kevin M. Gill used data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam instrument as it performed its 27th close flyby of Jupiter on June 2, 2020. Juno officially entered a polar orbit of Jupiter on July 5, 2016 to begin a scientific investigation of the planet, and once complete, the spacecraft will be intentionally deorbited into the planet’s atmosphere. Read more for the video and additional information.
During its closest approach of this pass, the Juno spacecraft came within approximately 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) of Jupiter’s cloud tops. At that point, the gas giant’s powerful gravity accelerated the spacecraft to tremendous speed, or around 130,000 mph (209,000 kilometers per hour) relative to the planet.
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The original JunoCam images were taken on June 2, 2020, between 2:47 a.m. PDT (5:47 a.m. EDT) and 4:25 a.m. PDT (7:25 a.m. EDT). JunoCam’s raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at missionjuno. swri. edu/ junocam/ processing. More information about NASA citizen science can be found at science. nasa. gov/ citizenscience and nasa. gov/solve/opportunities/ citizenscience,” said the agency.
