NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully completed the first-ever close flyby of the mysterious storm on Jupiter known as the Great Red Spot, and early images of the phenomenon are already being returned to Earth.
At 9:55 p.m. EDT (6:55 p.m. PDT) on Monday, July 10, only 11 minutes and 33 seconds after reaching perijove, the closest point to Jupiter in its current orbit, the spacecraft flew directly above the 10,000-mile- (16,000-km-) storm at an altitude of 5,600 miles (9,000 km), traveling at approximately 130,000 miles per hour.
All nine of Juno’s science instruments, including the JunoCam camera, operated successfully during the flyby.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has been observed for at least 350 years, with some sightings reported as early as the 1600s. It is the most powerful storm in the solar system, an anti-cyclone with winds up to 400 miles per hour (644 km/h).
Other missions to Jupiter, including NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft in 1979, the Galileo orbiter in the 1990s, and even Cassini on its way to Saturn approached the Great Red Spot and photographed it, but none from a vantage point as close as Juno’s. Read more....
At 9:55 p.m. EDT (6:55 p.m. PDT) on Monday, July 10, only 11 minutes and 33 seconds after reaching perijove, the closest point to Jupiter in its current orbit, the spacecraft flew directly above the 10,000-mile- (16,000-km-) storm at an altitude of 5,600 miles (9,000 km), traveling at approximately 130,000 miles per hour.
All nine of Juno’s science instruments, including the JunoCam camera, operated successfully during the flyby.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has been observed for at least 350 years, with some sightings reported as early as the 1600s. It is the most powerful storm in the solar system, an anti-cyclone with winds up to 400 miles per hour (644 km/h).
Other missions to Jupiter, including NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft in 1979, the Galileo orbiter in the 1990s, and even Cassini on its way to Saturn approached the Great Red Spot and photographed it, but none from a vantage point as close as Juno’s. Read more....