Cassini Captures Jupiter in Close-up Portrait

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Carolina Martinez (818) 354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Heidi Finn (720) 974-5859
Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

News Release: 2003-150 November 13, 2003

Cassini Captures Jupiter in Close-up Portrait

Jupiter, our solar system's most massive planet, has been captured in
the most detailed global color view ever seen, courtesy of NASA's
Cassini spacecraft. Cassini acquired the view during its closet
approach to the gas giant while en route to its final destination,
Saturn.

The Jupiter portrait is available at the JPL photojournal at
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04866 and at the Cassini
Imaging Team's website at http://ciclops.org http://ciclops.org/ .

On December 29, 2000, a little more than a day before the spacecraft's
closest approach to Jupiter, Cassini's narrow angle camera took a
series of high resolution images at a distance of approximately 10
million kilometers (6.2 million miles), completely covering the
planet. This allowed the Cassini imaging team to produce this new
global view.

"The imaging team wanted very much to take the ultimate picture of
Jupiter," said Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the
Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "The one that would
show Jupiter in all its intricate and glorious complexity, the one
that would knock your socks off. We managed to wedge this series of
images in among all the pressing scientific observations going on near
Cassini's closest approach to Jupiter, and we're very glad now that we
did."

The mosaic is constructed from 27 images. Nine image locations were
required to cover the entire planet, and each of those locations was
imaged in red, green and blue to provide true color. Although
Cassini's camera can see more colors than humans can, Jupiter's colors
in this new view look very close to the way the human eye would see
them.

Clever image processing techniques were used to assemble the images,
taken over the course of an hour's worth of rotation on Jupiter, into
a seamless mosaic. Each image was first digitally re-positioned and
then re-illuminated to show the planet as it would have appeared at
the time of the first image but under different lighting conditions.
The final product was given a small boost in contrast to enhance
visibility of the planet's atmospheric features.

"Jupiter really is a planet of clouds," said Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, a
Cassini imaging team associate and planetary scientist at the
University of California, Los Angeles, who composited the mosaic. "You
can stare for hours at the different forms, patterns and colors on
this image. Bright, white thunderstorms punctuate several of Jupiter's
bands, while the Great Red Spot, a vortex big enough to swallow Earth,
leaves a large, turbulent wake behind it. Jupiter shows us what an
atmosphere is capable of on the grandest scale."

"These images were taken at a little over 10 million kilometers (6.2
million miles) from Jupiter, but once we get into orbit at Saturn, the
spacecraft is closer to Saturn, so our images taken in the Saturnian
system should be absolutely spectacular," said Robert Mitchell,
Cassini project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif.

Cassini will reach Saturn's orbit on July 1, 2004, and release its
piggybacked Huygens probe about six months later for descent through
the thick atmosphere of the moon Titan. The probe could impact in
what may be a liquid methane ocean.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative mission of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division
of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.

Additional information about Cassini-Huygens is online at
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

The Space Science Institute is a non-profit organization of scientists
and educators engaged in research in the areas of astrophysics,
planetary science and the earth sciences, and in integrating research
with education and public outreach.

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