bild

December 11-12, 2000 - This color map of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard the Cassini spacecraft on December 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. It is the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across...The map is composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter...The map shows a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial hot spots, meteorological systems such as the one entered by the Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze.. (KEYSTONE/STOCKTREK/Stocktrek Images)