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Stunning, Detailed New Image of Jupiter

Posted by jamie on from the dr.-zeus dept.

darenw writes "From the Cassini spacecraft's flyby of Jupiter in late 2001, a new mosaic image has been assembled, revealing a stunning amount of detail, beautiful waves, swirls and spots in Jupiter's atmosphere. Get the story and images at the Cassini imaging team website." This is a huge image. My eyeball guess is that each pixel is the size of Pennsylvania.

10 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. I'm just wondering... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    why can't we ever get a "stunning, detailed new image" of Jennifer Connolly's breasts around here for a change?

  2. fakes by eyeball · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can just see the people that say the moon landings were fake now... "Those images of Jupiter can't be real. There aren't any stars in the background!"

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    1. Re:fakes by orthogonal · · Score: 4, Funny

      I can just see the people that say the moon landings were fake now... "Those images of Jupiter can't be real. There aren't any stars in the background!"

      This image of Jupiter is an obvious fake. There's no monolith full of stars in the foreground.

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  3. Mirror by fredrikj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hmm, I didn't have any trouble accessing this myself... but seeing as others did, here's a mirror of the fullsize JPEG version.

  4. No Need to 'Eyeball Guess', stupid. Just RTFA! by dnahelix · · Score: 3, Informative

    "My eyeball guess is that each pixel is the size of Pennsylvania."

    This is from the article: (right next to the link for the pictures)

    "It is the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced; the smallest visible features are ~ 60 km (37 miles) across."
    So, your 'guess' is waaaaay off.

    It's unbelievable that someone would submit an article WITHOUT ACTUALLY READING IT FIRST.

    And, btw, there are pictures of sections of Jupiter with greater detail, this just happens to be the global picture with the finest detail. Also, the pictures have been somewhat manipulated and it could be argued that this is a computer generated image, using photographed textures. It's all in the article. pffffftt.

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  5. Featured on APOD today by embobo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One of the images was featured on the Astronomy Picture of the Day site, so they have a mirror.


  6. Wallpaper hint by WTFmonkey · · Score: 2, Informative

    This picture fits perfectly (and looks really cool) if you rotate it 90 degrees clockwise first.

  7. in case you have a telescope by OneOver137 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Jupiter will be well placed in the sky for the next several months. Even a small 2.4" (60mm) scope will show some detail. More info can be found here: http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/plane ts/article_174_1.asp

  8. The far planets are dim. by yo303 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I think we're going to be disappointed when we take tourist trips out to the far planets.

    *All* the images that we've seen, from telescopes through Voyager through Cassini, were exposed for a long time (meaning longer than a second). Were we to actually look at the gas giant planets and their moons with our eyes, they'd be pretty dim. We might get some nice views if we turn all the spaceship lights down, and let our eyes get accustomed to the dark, but I doubt any detail of Pluto would be visible.

    I don't have the energy to work out the actual lux levels; I only barely had the energy to write this post.

    yo.

  9. Re:No Need to 'Eyeball Guess', stupid. Just RTFA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Smallest visible features are not the same as the size of each pixel though.

    Let's work out just how big each pixel is:

    The largest image there has about 2240 pixels from the top of jupiter to the bottom. According to this website at NASA, jupiter has a diameter of 142,800 km.

    142800/2240 is 63.75 km per pixel.

    Oh, this works out the same as what it said on the website. Whoops. Ah well, at least you have an independent confirmation.

    Just for the record, Pennsylvania is 309 miles long and 174 miles wide. That's 497 km x 280 km. Let's assume a square Pennsylvania of the same area, and we get 373 km per pixel.