2.3.07

Yay Jupiter!

So, New Horizons has successfully completed its Jupiter flyby, stealing a tiny weeny bit of the giant's momentum to speed itself to Pluto all the faster (learn more). New Horizons has snapped lots of pictures for us lay-people to gawp at, but it won’t start sending them back for a while:

That's it for the close-encounter downlink. Now we have to be a little patient and wait for the real data stream, which begins in about a week and will last through April. There will be lots more Tvashtar plume pictures, because it's near the north pole and so big that it rises above the pole itself, so every Io image we take will have that plume in it! We'll have color data and maybe even infrared pictures too, though detecting the plume in the infrared will be tough. The flyby is over, but the fun is just beginning.

John Spencer, New Horizon's science team member, writing here.

In the meantime, there are a few black-and-white images to look at on the New Horizon’s image page, here, including this one of three volcanic eruptions on Io (featuring the immense plume that Spencer was so excited about above):

1 comment:

Geosomin said...

For some reason all I can think of is the parrot sketch with the guy behind the counter saying "Beautiful plumage!"