Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Stunning new images of Jupiter and its moons


NASAs New Horizons spacecraft, which is on its way to Pluto, returned some incredible new images of Jupiter and its satellites. Check out the entire BBC article here and go here for more images.

The craft was using Jupiter as a slingshot to get out to the outer solar system as was able to get these images during the process. The above image shows the Little Red Spot (which is as big as Earth), a gigantic storm that scientists have had their eye on for some time.

The image below shows the moon Io in the upper left. The blue plume is from the erupting Tvashtar volcano. Europa, which has amazingly different characteristics is seen in the lower right.

2 comments:

Chris R said...

You missed my favorite, although, quite frankly, they're all good.

BrianR said...

yeah, i just saw your post....and I agree Europa really is the most intriguing of them all...what's not to like about ice plate tectonics?!