Double Crescent
Here’s a new angle on Jupiter and its constantly-erupting moon Io. ‘Jupiter-shine’ lights the moon’s night side, and at least three volcanic plumes are back-lit by the Sun. Even so, I cheated just a bit on this image, significantly brightening Io while leaving the larger orb untouched, in order to make them both visible.
Thanks to Emily over at the Planetary Society for calling attention to these latest images from New Horizons. Sadly, these shots of Jupiter are among the last from this mission, now that the team has downloaded more than 80% of the probe’s memory from its brief encounter with the giant planet. For New Horizons, it’s nothing but the empty, starlit sea of interplanetary space between here and its destination: Pluto in 2015. The next robotic explorer to arrive at Jupiter’s shores will be Juno in 2012 or so.
At the right is another view of Io’s tortured surface, and a close-up of the tempests churning in Jupiter’s atmosphere.
May 22, 2007
Riding with Robots:
