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New Horizons Probe's Images of Jupiter

Posted by kdawson on from the by-Jupiter dept.

SeaDour writes "The Pluto-bound New Horizons space probe, launched a little over a year ago, recently succeeded in passing through a narrow navigational keyhole by Jupiter. Using the gas giant's tremendous gravity, the craft now has a significant boost toward its final destination, shaving three years off the time it would otherwise spend en-route. As it passed through the Jovian system, the probe took some fantastic images of the neighborhood, including detailed observations of erupting volcanoes on Io, time-lapse photography of Jupiter's tumultuous atmosphere, and the faint ring system that was first discovered in Voyager photography. These new images prove the capabilities of the small probe, which is set to reach Pluto in 2015."

5 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Gravitational slingshot by absolutely · · Score: 5, Informative

    And as we all know, it is Jupiters orbital velocity that gives the spacecraft its speed boost, not Jupiter's gravitational field. See: here.

  2. Re:Great! by suv4x4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously? We launch a gajillion dollar probe, chance it in a sling around the largest planet in our solar system to only save 3 years, and we get black and white photos that have more noise than my cell-phone's camera!?

    This is how the first computers looked like. And this is how their "hard drives" looked like.

    It was expensive as hell, and the returns were minimal. They dared to do it first, and to improve upon their experience, so today the neighbor kid can whine how he has to wait entire 7 seconds for his physically accurate and photo realistic 3D racing car simulator game to load the entire race track, complete with realistically behaving crowd, plants and atmospheric effects.

    NASA reached Pluto with a remotely controlled probe deep in space. You ranted in Slashdot. Congratulations to both for your great achievements.

  3. Re:Great! by psaunders · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was actually looking forward to seeing what comes back from the probe. But I hear Pluto is a dwarf planet...the pictures probably won't show much, since dwarves live underground.

    --
    Karma police, arrest this man. He talks in math. He buzzes like a fridge. He's like a detuned radio.
  4. Re:Great! (You must be joking) by posterlogo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You're kidding right? All high-end scientific cameras are monochromatic (cameras for microscopy and astronomy). This is because a "color" CCD is essentially just an approximation of what a RGB image would look like. For scientific purposes, you do NOT want a fixed color imager to be adding or subtracting data. You want imaging at particular visible wavelengths (as directed by specific filters). If you want to make a color image, you can individually take pictures at 3 visible wavelengths (e.g. RGB) and combine them. This is what the Mars rovers do. Color doesn't automatically equate mean better. Sometimes it means you get prettier images, but they're rarely more valuable than imaging with specific filters. For example, infrared and UV can also be used to image. You don't get the pretty pictures except by false coloring, but you sure as heck get a lot of valuable measurements.


    Nice attempt at a rant/trolling, but maybe you don't know what you're talking about.

  5. Re:Great! by Karthikkito · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the JPL website:

    "This is the last of a handful of LORRI images that New Horizons is sending "home" during its busy close encounter with Jupiter - hundreds of images and other data are being taken and stored onboard. The rest of the images will be returned to Earth over the coming weeks and months as the spacecraft speeds along to Pluto."

    Wait some time for the high-res...they're more interested in making sure the thing works above all else.