Science

Telescopes capture Jupiter-bound JUICE probe during historic Earth-moon flyby (photos)

For avid skywatchers around the world, this week begins with trying to get a glimpse of the Jupiter-bound JUICE spacecraft that’s set to swing past both the moon and Earth over the span of just one day — a combination scientists have deemed to be the world’s first.

The European Space Agency (ESA) launched JUICE in April last year to explore Jupiter and three of its biggest moons — Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, all of which are thought to contain oceans of liquid water beneath their icy shells. The spacecraft’s two flybys this week, coming close to a year and a half after its launch, are meant to give it a gravitational boost to power its 8-year journey to the gas giant.

A week ago, astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project created a timelapse of JUICE’s movement from his view over Italy, capturing the probe as it hurtled toward our moon. At the center of a snapshot (below), JUICE is a faint speck of light among a sea of bright starry trails, seen as it was roughly 1.7 million miles (2.75 million kilometers) from our planet.

The JUICE spacecraft (white dot at the center of the picture) was imaged on Aug. 10, nine days before its flyby past the moon. (Image credit: Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project)

JUICE was fainter still in a picture captured by Masi just a day prior, on Aug. 9, when it was roughly 2 million miles (3.3 million kilometers) from Earth.

The JUICE spacecraft (white dot at the center of the picture) seen on Aug. 9. (Image credit: Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project)

ESA’s telescopes at the agency’s Optical Ground Station in Tenerife, Spain also captured views of the probe earlier in the month on Aug. 3 and 4.

ESA astronomers used the 80 cm Schmidt telescope at CAHA observatory in Spain to watch the JUICE probe approach Earth on Aug. 3 and 4. (Image credit: ESA)

JUICE will fly past the moon today (Aug. 19) at 5:15 p.m. Eastern time (2115 GMT). At its closest, the spacecraft will be just 460 miles (750 kilometers) above the moon’s surface, and will be capturing two images every minute using onboard cameras originally designed to watch the deployment of its solar panels, ESA said in a statement released today.




Source link

Related Articles

Back to top button