Glad Juno has made it and appears to be working OK. Not the most amazing image, better ones are routinely taken by amateurs from earth, but the crescent can only be seen by going there as Jupiter lies outside our orbit. We'll see much closer views from Juno when it's moved to a closer orbit in October.<p>I came across this on Reddit the other day, taken with a smartphone and 8" telescope: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/4kegyv/smartphone_jupiter_w_grs/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/4kegyv/sm...</a>
Here's a non-paywall link about the photo if anyone wants it: <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-13/juno-nasa-spacecraft-sends-back-first-images-of-jupiter/7624916" rel="nofollow">http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-13/juno-nasa-spacecraft-s...</a>
Are we going to get amazing Pluto-like images, like that chilling closeup? They really impressed me A LOT. Or is Jupiter close enough for us to already know enough about its surface?
I am astonished that humans can do this technology. Here I am looking at these pics a flying robot snapped from 4M+ km away from Jupiter?!<p>I wish they mark these pics with some pictographs regarding the scale of things. Like something comparing the orbital distances between the moons and Jupiter itself to that of Earth's orbital distance to the Sun or something. I cannot comprehend 4 million kilometers (which I know is Juno's distance to Jupiter, not the moons' orbital distance..). I have trouble wrapping my mind around just 4 km.
This is cool. Jupiter is easy to spot with the naked eye, as it's the second brightest object in the night sky after Venus (obviously, excluding the moon when lit). You can even see some of its moons with some basic optics.<p>To think there is a probe there now is a pretty powerful image to inspire children. Something we couldn't do with the recent Pluto visit, as awesome as that was.
I understand the importance of this mission, but after the Curiosity skycrane, the Pluto flyby and the Rosetta orbiter, I'm really jonesing for something <i>cool</i>.<p>What else is in the pipeline?
> On later orbits, Juno will continue photographing the poles, but where else the camera will focus will be open to a popular vote by the public.<p>NASA has been pretty active in public outreach. The article indicates that Juno takes something like 4 photos an hour. I wonder whether it will be 1 photo for the public to 3 photos for science, or totally different?
I understand JunoCam is a public outreach tool. But if it provides much worse resolution than Hubble from inside Jupiter's orbit, it's basically useless even for that.
I don't know if the cam is the problem or the transmission bandwidth, one thing is clear, when serios science starts there will be much less bandwidth available to send sharp and cool photos.<p>That's what you get from a solar powered probe. We waste billions of dollars and unique opportunities because some people have gotten in their minds that RTG power is evil and dangerous. NASA even canceled the ASRG, based on the Stirling engine, which was 5 times more efficient in terms of radioactive material and would have allowed powering probes for the whole solar system. Imagine a Pluto rover !
From NASA (no paywall, more info on mission):<p><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-juno-spacecraft-sends-first-in-orbit-view" rel="nofollow">https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-juno-spacecraft-send...</a>