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Jupiter-bound space probe captures Earth and Moon

Date:
August 31, 2011
Source:
NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Summary:
On its way to the biggest planet in the solar system -- Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft took time to capture its home planet and its natural satellite -- the moon.
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On its way to the biggest planet in the solar system -- Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft took time to capture its home planet and its natural satellite -- the moon.

"This is a remarkable sight people get to see all too rarely," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "This view of our planet shows how Earth looks from the outside, illustrating a special perspective of our role and place in the universe. We see a humbling yet beautiful view of ourselves."

The image was taken by the spacecraft's camera, JunoCam, on Aug. 26 when the spacecraft was about 6 million miles (9.66 million kilometers) away. The image was taken as part of the mission team's checkout of the Juno spacecraft. The team is conducting its initial detailed checks on the spacecraft's instruments and subsystems after its launch on Aug. 5.

Juno covered the distance from Earth to the moon (about 250,000 miles or 402,000 kilometers) in less than one day's time. It will take the spacecraft another five years and 1,740 million miles (2,800 million kilometers) to complete the journey to Jupiter. The spacecraft will orbit the planet's poles 33 times and use its eight science instruments to probe beneath the gas giant's obscuring cloud cover to learn more about its origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere, and look for a potential solid planetary core.

The solar-powered Juno spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 9:25 a.m. PDT (12:25 p.m. EDT) on Aug. 5 to begin its five-year journey to Jupiter.

JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about Juno is online at http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu .


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Materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Cite This Page:

NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Jupiter-bound space probe captures Earth and Moon." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 31 August 2011. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110830215633.htm>.
NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (2011, August 31). Jupiter-bound space probe captures Earth and Moon. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 19, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110830215633.htm
NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Jupiter-bound space probe captures Earth and Moon." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110830215633.htm (accessed March 19, 2024).

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