Throughout step one of humankind’s first-ever lunar-Earth flyby, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission captured this beautiful view of the Moon.
The picture was taken by Juice monitoring digicam 1 (JMC1) at 23:25 CEST on 19 August 2024, quickly after Juice made its closest strategy to the Moon. This profitable flyby of the Moon barely redirected Juice’s path by way of house to place it on track for a flyby of Earth on 20 August 2024.
The picture reveals some signal of actual color variations within the large-scale options on the lunar floor.
The Juice monitoring cameras had been designed to observe the spacecraft’s numerous booms and antennas, particularly in the course of the difficult deployment interval following launch.
They weren’t designed to hold out science or picture the Moon. A scientific digicam known as JANUS is offering high-resolution imagery in the course of the cruise section flybys of Earth, Moon and Venus, and of Jupiter and its icy moons as soon as within the Jupiter system in 2031.
JMC1 is positioned on the entrance* of the spacecraft and appears diagonally up right into a discipline of view that sees deployed antennas, and relying on their orientation, a part of one of many photo voltaic arrays. JMC photographs present 1024 x 1024 pixel snapshots. The photographs proven listed here are flippantly processed by Simeon Schmauß and Mark McCaughrean.
Information to Juice’s monitoring cameras
Extra info on the lunar-Earth flyby
Rewatch the livestream of Juice’s first Moon images, including Q&A with the team
More images from Juice’s monitoring cameras in ESA’s Planetary Science Archive
Entry a model of this picture with out labels utilizing the ‘Obtain’ button beneath the title
*Further technical info: ‘entrance’ means +X aspect of the spacecraft (the other aspect, -X hosts the excessive achieve antenna). JMC1 seems to be in the direction of the +Y/+Z course.
[Image description: View of our cratered Moon at the top of the image, as captured by the Juice monitoring camera 1 (JMC1) at 23:25 CEST on 19 August 2024, soon after Juice made its closest approach to the Moon. On the left side of the image we see parts of the spacecraft itself.]
