If you could ride along with NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it approaches Jupiter during one of its regular close passes by the giant planet, you would be treated to a striking vista similar to this one.
Unlike the Moon or Venus, this view of Jupiter in a crescent phase is impossible to see from Earth, even using a telescope. Since Jupiter’s orbit is outside Earth’s, an observer on Earth can only see the side of Jupiter that is illuminated by the Sun, so the planet always appears full.
Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created this mosaic using raw data from the JunoCam instrument. It comprises seven images taken during Juno’s 39th close pass by Jupiter on Jan. 12, 2022.
JunoCam’s raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing. More information about NASA citizen science can be found at https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and https://www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.
More information about Juno is at https://www.nasa.gov/juno and https://missionjuno.swri.edu. For more about this finding and other science results, see https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/science-findings.
