Juno, Jupiter and Io are photographed together

NASA’s Juno probe snapped a snapshot that captured Jupiter and its moon Io in a beautiful family photo.

The Juno probe, which left in 2011 for Jupiter to study the planets and their moons, continues to collect important data and take unprecedented pictures. Just hours before NASA’s Juno mission completed its 53rd flyby of the planet on July 31, 2023, the spacecraft passed by the volcanic moon Io and captured this view of Jupiter and Io photographed together in the same frame.

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The surface of Io, the most volcanically active world in the solar system, features hundreds of volcanoes that regularly erupt with molten lava and sulfurous gases. Juno provided scientists with their closest view of Io since 2007, and the space probe will collect additional images and data from its suite of science instruments during closer flybys in late 2023 and early 2024.

To create this image, citizen scientist Alan Miron Velasquez processed a raw image from the JunoCam instrument, improving its contrast. color And sharpness. At the time the initial image was taken on July 30, 2023, Juno was about 51,770 kilometers from Io and about 395,000 kilometers above Jupiter’s cloud tops.

JunoCam’s raw images are available for the public to review, process, and turn into image products https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing . More information about citizen science at NASA can be found at https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience And https://www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.

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source: NASA