This is the Web Edition of "A Trip Into Space", a Coimbra-based electronic book on space science. Both the texts and the photos are by courtesy of National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Jupiter
As Seen By Voyager 1

Voyager 1 took this photo of the planet Jupiter on Jan. 24, while still more than 25 million miles (40 million kilometers) away. As the spacecraft draws closer to the planet (about 1 million kilometers a day) more details are emerging in the turbulent clouds. The Great Red Spot shows prominently below center, surrounded by what scientists call a remarkably complex region of the giant planet's atmosphere. An elongated yellow cloud within the Great Red Spot is swirling around the spot's interior boundary in a counterclockwise direction with a period of a little less than six days, confirming the whirlpool-like circulation that astronomers have suspected from ground-based photographs. Ganymede, Jupiter's largest satellite, can be seen to the lower left of the planet. Ganymede is a planet-sized body larger than Mercury. This color photo was assembled at Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Image Processing Lab from three black and white images taken through filters. The Voyagers are managed for NASA's Office of Space Science by Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Last Update: 2005-Nov-02