Comments on: Juno team creates dramatic animation of Ganymede/Jupiter fly-by

By: Blair K Ivey

Blair K Ivey — Sat, 17 Jul 2021 07:12:20 +0000

Edward said ” . . . gets to be one by having interest, skillsets, and tenacity.”

Kind of how one gets to ‘be’, or do, anything.

By: Robert Zimmerman

Robert Zimmerman — Sat, 17 Jul 2021 04:21:45 +0000

In reply to Edward. Edward: All Juno raw images are released immediately to the public, which is then encouraged to enhance and process them. Eichstadt has done quite a number, including many that I have featured as cool images. See the Juno raw image page here.

By: Edward

Edward — Sat, 17 Jul 2021 03:06:49 +0000

Robert wrote: “In reality, that lightning wouldn’t be visible until you are very very close, and even then probably difficult to spot in the vastness of Jupiter.”

Lightning is a fascinating topic. One Jupiter probe, possibly Galileo, had an instrument that could detect electrons in Jupiter’s magnetic field. Since lightning tends to inject electrons into a planet’s magnetic field, this instrument indirectly detected lightning at Jupiter. I worked with one scientist who studied sprites shortly after they were discovered, a phenomenon that occurs above lightning strikes on Earth. He once quoted to me that another expert estimated that there could be as many as 100 lightning strikes per second on Earth. Jupiter is much larger, so there could be much, much more lightning there.

How visible these strikes might be could depend upon how deep they are below the top cloud layer.

Hypothesized shallow lightning on Jupiter:
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/lightning-and-mushballs-on-jupiter/

Notice that more lightning is seen in the night side than the day side of the Earth:
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/the-evening-pause/iss-symphony-timelapse-of-earth/

I’m not sure what kind of photography would be needed to capture lightning strikes or the auroras at Jupiter, or how many frames per second one would need to count the strikes per second, but the limitations of the Deep Space Network may limit this kind of study.

From the linked JPL article:

The camera’s point of view for this time-lapse animation was generated by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt, using composite images of Ganymede and Jupiter.

What is a “citizen scientist” and how can someone become one?
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/400/gerald-eichstadt/

It looks like a citizen scientist does freelance data reduction on topics that interest him, and he gets to be one by having interest, skillsets, and tenacity.

By: Jeff Wright

Jeff Wright — Sat, 17 Jul 2021 02:15:50 +0000

In other news, the massive Shanghai Astronomy Museum opened today.

By: David M. Cook

David M. Cook — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 20:29:28 +0000

WOW! If you were to play this in an IMAX theater people would fall over! Serious Fun for the eyes!

By: Lee Stevenson

Lee Stevenson — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 19:53:53 +0000

Very cool indeed, I imagine the lightning spots are an artifact of the image processing in between the the frames. Juno has a telephone camera grade imaging capacity, which ( as I have argued here before) , I think is almost criminal. Imagine the images and REAL movies, rather than frames several minutes apart merged together to make a “smooth” movie.
I am all about exploration of the solar system, and all behind answering the “big” questions, but at the same time, it is tax payers money being spent. I know this is a NASA mission, and involves non of my tax dollars, but if an ESA mission went to Jupiter with a crappy camera bolted on as an afterthought,.I would be annoyed!
The thrill we civilians get from the exploration of the solar system is from the pretty pictures. The measurement of solar wind distortion or gravity curves is very important to science, but to most non-scientists ( myself included!) It’s the photos and movies that provide the bang for the buck…. And the fact JUNO was approved without any kind of camera speaks to me… The pictures it returns will be a well for the scientific community for years to come, along with all the other data… But that other data will never engage us, or the next generation of scientists as much as the wonderful, intriguing and captivating images do.
Go Juno! For a “saved” mission, it’s doing its job, albeit slower than planned, but imagine that fly by with a decent HD camera…

This mission is one of my pet peeves… Sorry for ranting!

Love and lit!