Juno's Perijove-17 Jupiter Flyby, Reconstructed in 125-Fold Time-Lapse

2019-02-10 23:46 UT
Credit : Credit: NASA / JPL / SwRI / MSSS / SPICE / Gerald Eichstädt
Submitted By : Maquet-80
Mission Phase : PERIJOVE 17

On December 21, 2018, NASA's Juno probe successfully performed her Perijove-17 Jupiter flyby.

The movie is a reconstruction of the 2 hours and 15 minutes between 2018-12-21T16:15:00.000 and 2018-12-21T18:30:00.000 in 125-fold time-lapse.

It is based on 30 of the JunoCam images taken, and on spacecraft trajectory data provided via SPICE kernel files.

In steps of five real-time seconds, one still images of the movie has been rendered from at least one suitable raw image. This resulted in short scenes, usually of a few seconds.

Playing with 25 images per second results in 125-fold time-lapse.

Resulting overlapping scenes have been blended using the ffmpeg tool.

In natural colors, Jupiter looks pretty pale. Therefore, the still images are approximately illumination-adusted, i.e. almost flattened, and consecutively gamma-stretched to the 4th power of radiometric values, in order to enhance contrast and color.

The movie starts with a reconstructed in-bound sequence approaching Jupiter from north on its night side. Then the orbit approaches Jupiter down to an altitude of about 5,000 km near 18.1 degrees north (planetocentric), according to long-term planning of November 2017.

JunoCam looked towards Jupiter's limb during close flyby.

Then, the Great Red Spot, and the anticyclone Oval BA come into the field of view.

This is followed by a transition into the outbound orbit, with images of Jupiter's south polar region.

JunoCam was built and is operated by Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego / California / USA.

Many people at NASA, JPL, SwRI, and elsewhere have been, are, and will be required to plan and operate the Juno mission.