back to article By Juno! NASA delivers first new snaps from Jupiter

NASA has released the first images captured by the Juno probe. The space agency says the image below was captured on July 10th from a distance of “4.3 million kilometers … on the outbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit.” The probe's “JunoCam”, a colour, visible-light camera, collected the image. While it may …

  1. Unep Eurobats

    "While it may underwhelm a little"

    That was my first thought, but I like the augmented reality filter that adds the names of the moons it's looking at. The next one will have Pokemon Go characters.

    1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: "While it may underwhelm a little"

      ITYM "Pokémoon".

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can we please get those distances expressed in Ls ?

    I can't really picture 4.3 million kilometers, but 14.3 Ls does sound pretty close.

    Still leaves enough time to get interdicted several times :)

    1. Pirate Dave Silver badge
      Pirate

      I think your scale is off a bit. 14.3 Linguinis seems a bit too small of a distance to me. Even if it's kilo-Linguinis since you used a capital "L", it's still to small.. Maybe tera-Linguinis is getting closer to the proper scale.

  3. Jedit Silver badge
    Angel

    Missing data

    That first picture has Europa labelled, but you forgot to add the "Attempt no landings" sign.

    1. VinceH
      Coat

      Re: Missing data

      I think you might need to zoom in slightly.

    2. deadlockvictim

      Re: Missing data

      Well, you don't have to worry about Airstrip One going there.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Underwhelmed?

    If I looked through my telescope here on earth and saw that, I'd be pretty effin chuffed to be fair!!!

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Underwhelmed?

      Depends on the scope. My 8" shows more.

      Still, very good to see things working well, and really looking forward to the August results

      Great work from NASA

      1. Pedigree-Pete
        Pint

        Re: Underwhelmed?

        MHFW. If you shot that yourself, well done. Have one on me. PP

        1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Underwhelmed?

          Yes, I did shoot that myself. My 20 year old scope still delivers the goods. Cheers

      2. John 104

        Re: Underwhelmed?

        @Wilkinson

        Your pictures are obviously a hoax. There are no stars in the background. Clearly you made that in your garage to fool the world.

        Joking aside, that is a kick ass photo!

        1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Underwhelmed?

          @Wilkinson

          Your pictures are obviously a hoax. There are no stars in the background. Clearly you made that in your garage to fool the world.

          Joking aside, that is a kick ass photo!

          Darn, you guessed it. I also did the lunar landings in the same garage (when I was 7)

          Where has that tinfoil hat of mine gone

      3. x 7

        Re: Underwhelmed?

        you get better results with an 8" if you point it at Uranus

        1. MyffyW Silver badge

          Re: Underwhelmed?

          @x_7 - 8" - really?

          Have an upvote for making me giggle.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Underwhelmed?

      ... but it's nice to see real colours* for once!

      (and yes, I do understand why they often use "false-colour" stuff, but still...)

      * for human eyes...

  5. Beachrider

    Juno and its pictures...

    Juno is orbiting in the long cycles for a couple of years. Some of these pictures will be uber impressive. Most of what it does will be non-visual, though. NASA is trying to resolve much about Jupiter's liquid/solid middle. They want to find out much more about its magnetosphere, too.

    1. imanidiot Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Juno and its pictures...

      It'll drop the highest point in it's orbit (apojove) to pretty much circularise pretty soon afaik. It's in a very eliptical orbit right now as it only barely managed to get captured before starting to move too far away from Saturn again (Oberth effect means engine efficiency is much greater deeper in the gravity well). Thus once the craft is confirmed operational and all distant observations of the moons have been made it'll fire it's engine when aproaching perijove one last time to drop the apojove and shorten it's orbit time.

      (And yes, I just wanted to use apojove and perijove, because I'm a nerd)

      1. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: Juno and its pictures...

        (And yes, I just wanted to use apojove and perijove, because I'm a nerd)

        But you still claimed it was moving away from Saturn...

        D'Oh

        1. imanidiot Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: Juno and its pictures...

          @John Robson, ==>

          I'll be in the corner sulking if anybody needs me...

          I don't know how that happened.

          1. Paul Mitchell

            Re: Juno and its pictures...

            Because it was Saturn in the book, and got changed to Jupiter in the movie?

            <Youngsters>Arthur C. Clarke, 2001</Youngsters>

      2. hypernovasoftware

        Re: Juno and its pictures...

        Actually Juno will remain in a highly elliptical orbit in order to stay clear of Jupiter's immensely powerful radiation fields. It will gather data when it is close to Jupiter then get out of Dodge before any serious damage to the spacecraft can happen.

        See NASA Juno Spacecraft

    2. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: Juno and its pictures...

      The original plans weren't even going to include a visible light camera, so we should be happy we get any snaps at all.

  6. Unicornpiss
    Pint

    I look forward to seeing them...

    But while I'm looking forward to the first new (and maybe better) pictures of Jupiter in decades, It makes me smile a little more to look at the pictures sent back by the intrepid Voyager probe with its ancient 1970s technology, which is still hanging in there after so many years. A relic from a different, more innocent time in every way.

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