Perijove 16: Passing Jupiter

Set to Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity, one of the seven movements in Gustav Holst‘s 1916-ish orchestral suite entitled The Planets, Op. 32, this is what it’s like for NASA’s Juno spacecraft to zoom by the largest planet in our solar system. Perijove 16: Passing Jupiter, via Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The featured video is from perijove 16, the sixteenth time that Juno has passed near Jupiter since it arrived in mid-2016. Each perijove passes near a slightly different part of Jupiter’s cloud tops. This color-enhanced video has been digitally composed from 21 JunoCam still images, resulting in a 125-fold time-lapse. The video begins with Jupiter rising as Juno approaches from the north. As Juno reaches its closest view — from about 3,500 kilometers over Jupiter’s cloud tops — the spacecraft captures the great planet in tremendous detail. Juno passes light zones and dark belt of clouds that circle the planet, as well as numerous swirling circular storms, many of which are larger than hurricanes on Earth. As Juno moves away, the remarkable dolphin-shaped cloud is visible. After the perijove, Jupiter recedes into the distance, now displaying the unusual clouds that appear over Jupiter’s south. To get desired science data, Juno swoops so close to Jupiter that its instruments are exposed to very high levels of radiation.

Learn more about Juno’s mission with The New York Times: Juno: Piercing Jupiter’s Clouds. Plus, watch Juno Perijove 06, a riveting view set to music by György Ligeti and a 4K LRO moon visualization set to Clair de Lune.

h/t Katie Mack.