Last month , NASA ’s Juno snappedthe closest imagesof the Jovian moonshine Ganymede in two decades . Visual artists stitched together those unbelievable images and Juno ’s subsequent flyby of Jupiter and created an unbelievable 3D animation that let you aviate over the largest Sun Myung Moon of the solar system before meeting the largest planet in the solar system .
The visuals were created using the substantial images taken by the spacecraft ’s JunoCam that were prepared by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt and then projected onto digital sphere of influence . Animators Koji Kuramura and Mike Stetson make the flyby from world to world .
On June 7 , Juno was just 1,038 kilometers ( 645 mi ) from the control surface of Ganymede delivering a elaborate picture of the synodic month . Then 14 hours and 50 transactions later , Juno crossed the 1.18 million kilometers ( 735,00 statute mile ) separating the lunar month from Jupiter . It then survey the planet , just 3,400 kilometers ( 2,100 miles ) above its clouds .
And you could take this phenomenal planetary journey in just 3 minutes and 30 seconds .
“ The animation evidence just how beautiful thick space geographic expedition can be , ” Scott Bolton , primary investigator for Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio , said in astatement . “ The animation is a means for people to imagine exploring our solar arrangement at first hand by seeing what it would be like to be orb Jupiter and fly past one of its icy moons . Today , as we border on the exciting aspect of humans being able to confabulate space in orbit around Earth , this propels our imaging decade into the futurity , when world will be inspect the foreign world in our solar system . ”
The flyby of Ganymede was n’t just an crucial observation military mission it was also essential for the navigation of the spacecraft . Being the biggest moon in the solar system , Ganymede exerts quite the gravitative twist and the team used it to change Juno ’s orbit . The spacecraft now go around Jupiter every 43 solar day rather than 53 Clarence Shepard Day Jr. .
Juno ’s next flyby of the planet is scheduled for July 21 . This will be the 35thsince the get-go of the charge . This was imagine to be its final perijove end into the satellite , but the mission was extended again . presently , the extended 2d missionary post is scheduled to end in September 2025 .
