| Piú viste - Jupiter: the "King" and His Moons |
Io-Surface deposits and craters-PIA01514.jpgIo: surface deposits and craters59 visiteThis picture of Io, the innermost Galilean satellite, was taken by Voyager 1 on the morning of March 5, 1979 at a range of 377,000 kilometers (226,200 miles). The smallest features visible are about 10 kilometers (6 miles) across. The reddish, white and black areas are probably surface deposits, possibly consisting of mixtures of salts, sulfur and sublimate deposits of possible volcanic origin. Many of the black spots in these pictures are associated with craters of possible volcanic origin. The lack of impact craters on Io suggests that the surface is relatively young compared to the other Galilean satellites and some of the terrestrial planets such as Mercury and the Moon.
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Ganymede-PIA01618.jpgGanymede's surface (detail mgnf)59 visiteView of the Marius Regio and Nippur Sulcus area of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede showing the dark and bright grooved terrain which is typical of this satellite. This regional scale view was imaged near the terminator (the line between day and night) and provides geologic context for small areas that were imaged at much higher resolution earlier in the tour of NASA's Galileo spacecraft through the Jovian system. The older, more heavily cratered dark terrain of Marius Regio is rutted with furrows, shallow troughs perhaps formed as a result of ancient giant impacts. Bright grooved terrain is younger and is formed through tectonism probably combined with icy volcanism. The lane of grooved terrain in the lower left, Byblus Sulcus, was imaged during the spacecraft's second orbit, as were Philus Sulcus and Nippur Sulcus, seen here in the upper left. Placing the small higher resolution targets of Galileo's second orbit into the context of more distant, lower resolution views of the areas surrounding and connecting them, and imaging them along Ganymede's terminator, allows for an integrated understanding of Ganymede' s geology.
North is to the top left of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the lower right. The image, centered at 43 degrees latitude and 194 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 664 by 518 kilometers. The resolution is 940 meters per picture element. The image was taken on May 7, 1997 at 12 hours, 50 minutes, 11 seconds Universal Time at a range of 92,402 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
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Jupiter-PIA02865-3.JPGJupiter's clouds - 890 nnmts filter59 visiteTo the North-West (above and to the left) of the dark feature is a small cloud that is bright in the 619-nnmts image but has no contrast at the other wavelengths. This is the signature expected for a thick water cloud. Another feature seen only in the weak-methane ratio is a dark ring near the center of the image.
This feature is probably a counter-clockwise rotating, upwelling core surrounded by a sinking perimeter with diminished cloudiness. The fact that it is seen only in the weak methane ratio indicates the effects of a lower-level circulation that does not penetrated to the upper ammonia cloud level and may be confined to the deeper water cloud.
The opposite behavior is evident in an oval storm that appears dark in 727 and 890 nnmts images, but is absent in the weak 619-nnmts frame. It is located to the South-West of the Great Red Spot. Further to the West - at slightly more Northerly Latitudes - are a series of small spots that are dark at all wavelengths.
These and a myriad of other contrast features at many latitudes reveal much about Jupiter's complicated cloud structure and meteorology.
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Jupiter_sMap00-PIA07782-1.jpgSuper-detailed Jupiter's Map (1)59 visiteThis map is part of a group release of cylindrical and polar stereographic projections of Jupiter.
This color map of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 Km (approx. 75 miles) across.
The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's Northern and Southern Hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter.
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Jupiter-02.jpgJupiter's Magnetic Fields59 visitenessun commento
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Io-SouthernLimbandlight-PIA02250.jpgThe Southern limb of Io59 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
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Io-050107_04.jpgPlanetary Flares59 visiteThis montage demonstrates New Horizons' ability to observe the same target in complementary ways using its diverse suite of instruments. Previously released views taken at visible and slightly longer infrared wavelengths with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), New Horizons’ high-resolution black-and-white camera, and the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), its color camera, are here compared with a nearly simultaneous view from the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA), which observes its targets in more than 200 separate wavelengths of infrared light. This color LEISA view of Io (bottom right) combines three wavelength ranges, centered at 1.80, 2.04, and 2.31 micrometers.
The LORRI image (left) shows fine details on Io's sunlit crescent and in the partially sunlit plume from the Tvashtar volcano, and reveals the bright nighttime glow of the hot lavas at the source of the Tvashtar plume. The MVIC image (top right) shows the contrasting colors of the red lava and blue plume at Tvashtar, and the sulfur and sulfur dioxide deposits on Io's sunlit surface. The LEISA image shows that the glow of the Tvashtar volcano is even more intense at infrared wavelengths and reveals the infrared glow of at least 10 fainter volcanic hot spots on the moon’s nightside. The brightest of these, Amirani/Maui, which is visible to the lower right of Tvashtar, is less than 4% as bright as Tvashtar. All of these are long-lived hot spots that have been observed previously by the Galileo orbiter. Further analysis of the LEISA data will provide information on the volcanoes’ temperatures, and data on the sunlit crescent of Io will reveal details of Io's surface composition.
The LORRI, MVIC and LEISA images were taken March 1, 2007, at 00:35, 00:25 and 00:31 Universal Time, respectively, from a range of 2,3 MKM (about 1,4 MMs).
The images are centered at Io coordinates 4° South and 164° West.MareKromium
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Ganymede-lor_0035286119_0x630_sci_1.jpgThe "obscure outline" of Ganymede (1)59 visiteDescription: Ganymede crossing crescent Jupiter
Time: 2007-03-04 03:50:01 UTC
Exposure: 2 msec
Target: GANYMEDE
Range: 5,9 MKMMareKromium
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Jupiter, Europa & Callisto.jpgJupiter, Europa and Callistus58 visitenessun commento
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JUPITER from 81,3 MKM.jpgJupiter from 81,3 MKM58 visitenessun commento
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Ganymede-PIA00353~0.jpgGanymede from 2,6 MKM58 visiteThis picture was taken on March 4, 1979 at 2:30 A.M. PST by Voyager 1 from a distance of about 2,6 MKM (such as about 1,6 MMs). Ganymede is Jupiter's largest satellite with a radius of about 2600 Km which means about 1,5 times that of our Moon. Ganymede has a bulk density of only approximately 2,0 g/cc (almost half that of the Moon).
In the light of the above, Ganymede is probably composed of a mixture of rock and ice. The features here, the large dark regions, in the northeast quadrant, and the white spots, resemble features found on the Moon, mare and impact craters respectively. The long white filaments resemble rays associated with impacts on the lunar surface. The various colors of different regions probably represent differing surface materials. There are several dots on the picture of single color (blue, green, and orange) which are the result of markings on the camera used for pointing determinations and are not physical markings.
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Jupiter-HR.jpgJupiter's North Pole (HR)58 visiteDa "NASA - Picture of the Day" dell'11-09-2005:"Gas giant Jupiter is the Solar System's largest world with about 320 times the mass of Earth. Famous for its Great Red Spot, Jupiter is also known for its regular, equatorial cloud bands, also visible in very modest sized telescopes.
The dark belts and light-colored zones of Jupiter's cloud bands are organized by the Planet's girdling winds which reach speeds of up to 500 Km/hour. On toward the Jovian poles though, the cloud structures become more mottled and convoluted until, as in this Cassini spacecraft mosaic of Jupiter, the Planet's Polar Region begins to look something like a brain. This striking equator-to-pole change in cloud patterns is not presently understood, but may be due in part to the effect of Jupiter's rapid rotation or to convection vortices generated at high latitudes by the massive Planet's internal heat loss.
Cassini took this dramatically detailed view of Jupiter in December 2000, during its flyby enroute to Saturn".
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