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NASA\u2019s Juno mission captured these views of Jupiter during its 59th close flyby of the giant planet on March 7, 2024. They provide a good look at Jupiter\u2019s colorful belts and swirling storms, including the Great Red Spot. Close examination reveals something more: two glimpses of the tiny moon Amalthea (see Figure B below).<\/p>\n
Figure B<\/h4>\n
With a radius of just 52 miles (84 kilometers), Amalthea has a potato-like shape, lacking the mass to pull itself into a sphere. In 2000, NASA\u2019s Galileo spacecraft revealed some surface features, including impact craters, hills, and valleys. Amalthea circles Jupiter inside Io\u2019s orbit, which is the innermost of the planet\u2019s four largest moons, taking 0.498 Earth days to complete one orbit.<\/p>\n
Amalthea is the reddest object in the solar system, and observations indicate it gives out more heat than it receives from the Sun. This may be because, as it orbits within Jupiter\u2019s powerful magnetic field, electric currents are induced in the moon\u2019s core. Alternatively, the heat could be from tidal stresses caused by Jupiter\u2019s gravity.<\/p>\n
At the time that the first of these two images was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 165,000 miles (265,000 kilometers) above Jupiter\u2019s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 5 degrees north of the equator.<\/p>\n
Citizen scientist Gerald Eichst\u00e4dt made these images using raw data from the JunoCam instrument, applying processing techniques to enhance the clarity of the images.<\/p>\n
JunoCam\u2019s raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at\u00a0 More information about NASA citizen science can be found at\u00a0<\/p>\n
More information about Juno is at\u00a0 For more about this finding and other science results, see\u00a0<\/p>\n
Image credit:
<\/strong>Image data: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/SwRI\/MSSS
Image processing by Gerald Eichst\u00e4dt<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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