Click on the image for movie of
On Approach: Jupiter and Io
This sequence of images was taken on Jan. 8, 2007, with the New Horizons
Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), while the spacecraft was about
81 million kilometers (about 50 million miles) from Jupiter. Jupiter's
volcanic moon Io is to the right; the planet's Great Red Spot is also
visible. The image was one of 11 taken during the Jan. 8 approach
sequence, which signaled the opening of the New Horizons Jupiter
encounter.
Even in these early approach images, Jupiter shows different face than
what previous visiting spacecraft -- such as Voyager 1, Galileo and
Cassini -- have seen. Regions around the equator and in the southern
tropical latitudes seem remarkably calm, even in the typically turbulent
"wake" behind the Great Red Spot.
The New Horizons science team will scrutinize these major meteorological
features -- including the unexpectedly calm regions -- to understand the
diverse variety of dynamical processes on the solar system's largest
planet. These include the newly formed Little Red Spot, the Great Red Spot
and a variety of zonal features.
