Gallery | My Favorite Planet Pics | Jupiter
In 1997, NASA launched the Cassini spacecraft on its way to Saturn. To get there (like MESSENGER and Rosetta in the Mercury and Earth pictures in this gallery) it needed a little help. So in 2001 Cassini passed by Jupiter, stealing a little bit of Jupiter's energy and boosting itself to a higher speed. It didn't get all that close to the big planet -- 10 million kilometers (6 million miles), or 25 times the distance of the Moon from the Earth -- but its powerful cameras were able to take this stunning half-Jupiter shot.
This is actually a mosaic of 27 images! It took a 3x3 picture grid of the planet, then repeated it twice to get it through red, green, and blue filters. That way, astronomers back home could stitch them together to make this beautiful and moody true-color picture of the solar system's biggest planet. The detail on the original are incredible; you can see hundreds of small storms raging across the planet, as well as subtle colors and other features. Remember: Jupiter is 86,000 miles across, 11 times the diameter of Earth! Keep that in mind when you see something in this picture that looks "small".
Related post: Cassini: ten years since Jupiter
Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI
