A Jupiter-Io Montage from New Horizons (APOD 08 Jan 2008)

[AZJames]

This is just a comment about the APOD: If this is a sample of the image clarity we may expect when the New Horizons spacecraft reaches Pluto, I await those images with great anticipation. I congratulate the designers and builders of NH. Well done!

[geonuc]

It's pretty cool. 2015 seems so far off. I can't wait.

[Case]

I await those images with great anticipation.

Mark your calendar!

[iamlucky13]

You'll have to mark your calendar a few weeks to months later. New Horizons will fly past Pluto and then Charon facing them and observing constantly for a period of several weeks. It's not until Pluto has faded in the distance that it will turn its antenna to earth and share all the images and data it took. Because of the distance and resultant low bandwidth, it will take several months to send all that data to earth.

The one-shot nature of the mission is part of why the Jupiter flyby was so important. Not only did it cut two years off the trip, but it let the team do a complete test of system ahead of time (and as a bonus collected some new data on Jupiter).

For fun, here's a comparison of the best image we currently have of Pluto and the peak resolution we can expect from New Horizons when it flies by in 2015:


(image derived from colors exposed during Charon eclipses)


(Saturnian moon Tethys at 50 m/pixel in the full size)

[neufer]

Explanation: As the New Horizons spacecraft sweeps through the Solar System, it is taking breathtaking images of the planets. In February of last year, New Horizons passed Jupiter and the ever-active Jovian moon Io. In this montage, Jupiter was captured in three bands of infrared light making the Great Red Spot look white. Complex hurricane-like ovals, swirls, and planet-ringing bands are visible in Jupiter's complex atmosphere. Io is digitally superposed in natural color. Fortuitously, a plume was emanating from Io's volcano Tvashtar. Frost and sulfuric lava cover the volcanic moon, while red-glowing lava is visible beneath the blue sunlight-scattering plume.

Animation of [Tvashtar] volcanic plumes on Io, a moon of Jupiter, by New Horizons: