New volcanoes, dramatic volcanic plumes, a recent impact from a possible comet and the tops of thunderhead clouds are the highlights in a scrapbook of images from the New Horizons spacecraft鈥檚 recent swing past Jupiter.
The NASA probe鈥檚 ultimate destinations are Pluto and a ring of icy bodies beyond Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt. But the side trip to Jupiter gave New Horizons a boost in speed thanks to Jupiter鈥檚 intense gravity, shaving three years off its travel time. The probe made its closest pass of Jupiter on 28 February.
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In the best ever photos of Jupiter鈥檚 faint ring system, the tiny moons Metis and Adrastea can be seen keeping the boulders and dust in the rings in line.
New Horizons also caught sight of the remains of what may have been a recent impact in the ring system. Three unexpected clumps of dust were spotted near the ring, although they are difficult to discern in this .
鈥淲e鈥檝e never seen structures like this in the rings before,鈥� says John Spencer, the Jupiter Encounter Science Team deputy leader at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, US. 鈥淭he rings have looked pretty uniform before, so to see these individual clusters of particles in the rings is a really new discovery.鈥�
快猫短视频s suspect that a comet struck the charcoal-black rings sometime around January 2007, just weeks before New Horizons flew by and observed the dust clumps. By now, those clumps may be gone.
New volcanoes
Early on in its flyby, New Horizons spotted a huge plume of volcanic material spewing from the Tvashtar volcano on the moon Io. Hot lava glowing on the surface around Tvashtar may be from the same volcano as this plume, which stretches about 300 kilometres (200 miles) above the surface.
快猫短视频s also found a relatively new volcano near Io鈥檚 south pole that had not been seen by the Galileo spacecraft when it observed the region in 1999. The volcano is so new it does not yet have a name, but scientists suspect it is the source of a glowing gas plume spotted several hundred kilometres above the moon鈥檚 surface.
And the spacecraft may have even witnessed the birth of a brand new volcano on Io. The evidence comes from the intense glow of hot, 鈥測oung鈥� lava, says Spencer.
In addition to observations of Jupiter鈥檚 moons and rings, New Horizons also teamed up with the Hubble Space Telescope to take joint observations of the Little Red Spot (see image below right), a storm that formed from the merger of three smaller white storms. It intensified to its current ruddy hue in late 2005 (see Jupiter opens a second red eye). Its winds may reach 650 kilometres per hour (400 miles per hour).
鈥楽tarry night鈥�
The result is the most detailed, colourful picture of . Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, US, says the picture is reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh鈥檚 鈥淭he Starry Night鈥� painting. 鈥淏ut this is the real deal,鈥� Weaver says. 鈥淭his is not in somebody鈥檚 imagination.鈥�
The photo is detailed enough to reveal the tops of thunderhead clouds as white pinpoints against the lilac background just north of the red storm.
New Horizons is still sending back pictures from its trip past Jupiter, though soon it will finish 鈥渄ownloading鈥� its vacation photos. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be kind of sad in a few weeks when we finally stop getting this daily fix of new, exciting stuff,鈥� Spencer says.
In 2007 and 2008, the navigation team will be busy planning the spacecraft鈥檚 rendezvous with Pluto, which will occur in 2015.
