Explanation:
What would it be like to coast by Jupiter and watch it rotate?
This was just the experience of the
New Horizons
spacecraft as it approached and flew by Jupiter earlier this year.
Clicking on the image will bring up a
movie
of what the robotic spacecraft saw.
Visible above in the
extensive atmosphere of the Solar System's largest planet are
bands and belts of light and dark clouds, as well as
giant rotating storm systems seen as
ovals.
Other movies compiled by
New Horizons and
other passing spacecraft have captured the
clouds swirling and moving relative to themselves.
Jupiter
has a diameter of about eleven times that of our Earth, and rotates once in about 10 hours.
The robotic
New Horizons
spacecraft continues to speed toward the outer
Solar System where it is expected to approach
Pluto in 2015.
