Jupiter

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Photography Science

The James Webb Telescope Captures Jupiter’s Rings and Brilliant Aurora in Two Stunning Composites

Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, Jupiter ERS Team, processing by Ricardo Hueso (UPV/EHU) and Judy Schmidt

It’s been two months since NASA unveiled the first images captured by the exceptionally powerful James Webb Space Telescope, and a pair of new composites taken by the observer’s infrared NIRCam showcase Jupiter’s aurora and unique characteristics in similarly striking detail.

Against a dark backdrop filled with hazy dots that are likely distant galaxies, the wide view features two of the planet’s moons, Amalthea and Adrastea, and its rings. According to the European Space Agency, which released the images, the dusty halos shown are one million times fainter than the gaseous mass they encircle.

For the close-up, astronomers applied three filters to the NIRCam to capture the tiny details of the largest planet in our solar system. Zeroing in on the Jovian atmosphere, the image shows two polar auroras shining through red hues, with brilliant greens and yellows swirling around. “A third filter, mapped to blues, showcases light that is reflected from a deeper main cloud. The Great Red Spot, a famous storm so big it could swallow Earth, appears white in these views, as do other clouds because they are reflecting a lot of sunlight,” the agency says.

Because the human eye can’t see infrared light, scientist Judy Schmidt collaborated with astronomers to make the planet’s details visible. (via Peta Pixel)

Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, Jupiter ERS Team, processing by Judy Schmidt

Photography

A Rare Photograph Captures ISS Moving Between Jupiter and Saturn During the Great Conjunction

Image © Jason De Freitas, shared with permission

On December 22, Jupiter and Saturn appeared closer together in the sky than they have since March 4, 1226. The nearly 800-year event is known as the Great Conjunction, which occurs to some extent every two decades. In true 2020 fashion, though, this year’s meeting was the most acute in centuries.

Like others around the globe, photographer Jason De Freitas shot the event, although his image is particularly fortuitous because it frames the International Space Station appearing to fly between the glowing planets. De Freitas traveled about an hour away from his home in New South Wales to Jellore Lookout, where he used a variety of tracking equipment to align and snap the 10-second exposure photograph.

Purchase a print of the singular sighting on De Freitas’s site, and check out the video below to dive further into his process. You can follow his astrophotography on Instagram. (via Peta Pixel)

Amazing Animation Photography Science

Still Photos of Jupiter Taken by the Juno Spacecraft Set in Motion by Sean Doran

NASA’s Juno spacecraft launched in 2011, arriving at Jupiter in July of 2016 to begin a series of what will eventually be 12 orbits around the Solar System’s largest planet. The path selected for this particular mission is a wide polar orbit, most of which is spent well away from Jupiter. But once every 53 days Juno screams from top to bottom across the surface of the gaseous planet, recording data and snapping photographs for two hours. It takes around 1.5 days to download the six megabytes of data collected during the transit.

Juno only takes a handful of still photographs each time it passes Jupiter, all of which are made available to the public. Lucky for us Sean Doran stitched together the images from Juno’s last transit (colorized by Gerald Eichstädt) to create an approximate video/animation of what it looks like to fly over the giant planet.

Design Food

Planetary Structural Layer Cakes Designed by Cakecrumbs

Self-taught chef Rhiannon over at Cakecrumbs has been working on a fun series of planetary cakes that are designed to be scientifically accurate with different types of cake representing various layers within Earth and Jupiter. For her Jupiter Cake the center is the theoretical rock/ice core (mudcake), followed by a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen (almond butter), and finally the liquid molecular hydrogen (colored vanilla). She layered her Earth Cake similarly and finished it off with some absurdly detailed continent design made with marshmallow fondant.

Due to high demand she just posted an extremely detailed tutorial including a video that explains how to make spherical concentric layer cakes. Which is now a thing. That I will have at my birthdays now and forever. (via I F’ing Love Science)