seems very blurry. Hopefully sharper ones to come.
Yep, Juno's orbit will take it much closer than this, so we should expect more interesting photos in about a month's time.
NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
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Re: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
#12I understand JunoCam is a public outreach tool. But if it provides much worse resolution than Hubble from inside Jupiter's orbit, it's basically useless even for that. I don't know if the cam is the problem or the transmission bandwidth, one thing is clear, when serios science starts there will be much less bandwidth available to send sharp and cool photos. That's what you get from a solar powered probe. We waste bil…
Juno is in a highly elliptical orbit, which will take it within 5000km of Jupiter's cloud tops. This photo was taken from much further away than that. In short, check back in about a month. :)
Agreed, and to add more detail for comparison - the current distance is around 2 million kilometers, so resolution should jump by a factor of about 500 (per dimension, not number of pixels) at closest range.
EDIT: For a comparison to Hubble - at closest approach JunoCam will get 5 kilometers per pixel [1], while Hubble gets in the region of 120 kilometers per pixel [2]. So, giant jump in quality, though the field of view from up close will be limited.
[1] http://planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2011/3133.html
Re: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
#13I understand JunoCam is a public outreach tool. But if it provides much worse resolution than Hubble from inside Jupiter's orbit, it's basically useless even for that. I don't know if the cam is the problem or the transmission bandwidth, one thing is clear, when serios science starts there will be much less bandwidth available to send sharp and cool photos. That's what you get from a solar powered probe. We waste bil…
The probe is 2.7 million miles from Jupiter, headed further out (its orbit is highly eccentric). That's nearly 11 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
At closest approach, Juno will be 2,200 miles from Jupiter, less than 1% of the distance between the Earth and Moon.
Space exploration is expensive, and a very large part of that expense is mass. Putting a 2.7 million mile scope on a probe that's going to be spending much of its time far closer in to interesting targets costs mass, and fuel, and other sensing apparatus you can't add. So there's that.
It's possible that there are higher-resolution capabilities for the probe as well, or that post-processing or higher data rates will improve current images.
It's also possible that visual reconnaissance wasn't a high priority for this mission, though I'm not familiar with the sensing platforms included.
Given orbital eccentricity, Juno can acquire and store high-quality data, and transmit that at leisure during the outbound parts of its orbit.
Re: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
#14This is cool. Jupiter is easy to spot with the naked eye, as it's the second brightest object in the night sky after Venus (obviously, excluding the moon when lit). You can even see some of its moons with some basic optics.
To think there is a probe there now is a pretty powerful image to inspire children. Something we couldn't do with the recent Pluto visit, as awesome as that was.
Re: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
#15Glad Juno has made it and appears to be working OK. Not the most amazing image, better ones are routinely taken by amateurs from earth, but the crescent can only be seen by going there as Jupiter lies outside our orbit. We'll see much closer views from Juno when it's moved to a closer orbit in October. I came across this on Reddit the other day, taken with a smartphone and 8" telescope: https://www.reddit.com/r/astro…
That's 400 stacked images, but still, very impressive.
Re: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
#16From NASA (no paywall, more info on mission):
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-juno-spacecraft-send...
Re: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
#17Are we going to get amazing Pluto-like images, like that chilling closeup? They really impressed me A LOT. Or is Jupiter close enough for us to already know enough about its surface?
Re: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
#18Are we going to get amazing Pluto-like images, like that chilling closeup? They really impressed me A LOT. Or is Jupiter close enough for us to already know enough about its surface?
Jupiter either doesn't have a solid surface, or it lies very deep inside (like 4/5ths of the way to the center). So there isn't any surface to see, just clouds.
Juno will be passing within 3,000 miles of the tops of Jupiter's clouds. Since Jupiter's radius is 43,000 miles, it will fill the entire frame. The only question is how high-quality the camera is.
The camera is for public relations only (no science) and I don't know the resolution. But this photo was taken from 2.7M miles, so you can expect the resolution to get roughly 9 thousand times better.
EDIT:
> Jupiter itself will only appear to be 75 pixels across from JunoCam when Juno reaches the furthest point of its orbit around the planet. At its closest approaches JunoCam could achieve 15 km/pixel resolution from 4300 km, while Hubble has taken images of up to 119 km/pixel from 600 million km....The camera uses a Kodak image sensor, the KODAK KAI-2020, capable of color imaging at 1600 x 1200 pixels. It has a field of view of 18 x 3.4 degrees with three filters to provide color imaging.
Re: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
#19seems very blurry. Hopefully sharper ones to come.
This photo was taken from 2.7M miles, and Juno will approach closer than 3,000 miles of the cloud tops, so you can expect the resolution to get roughly 9 thousand times better.
Re: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Juno is in a highly elliptical orbit, which will take it within 5000km of Jupiter's cloud tops. This photo was taken from much further away than that. In short, check back in about a month. :)
Agreed, and to add more detail for comparison - the current distance is around 2 million kilometers, so resolution should jump by a factor of about 500 (per dimension, not number of pixels) at closest range. EDIT: For a comparison to Hubble - at closest approach JunoCam will get 5 kilometers per pixel [1], while Hubble gets in the region of 120 kilometers per pixel [2]. So, giant jump in quality, though the field of…
Current distance is 2.7 million miles, or 4.3 million km, according to the NY Times caption.