Jupiter (Planet) -- Photographs from space; Jupiter probes; Voyager Project
(_Range to Jupiter, 1.5 million kilometers_). At 2:30 a.m. the first
long-exposure sequence of ring pictures was taken, and at 3:00 a.m. the
intensive period of the Callisto encounter began. Eighty high-resolution
images were obtained of the satellite, centered around closest approach
(215 000 kilometers) at 6:13 a.m. Incoming photos showed some features
that looked like double-walled craters, but no more giant ring
structures were seen. It appeared that there was an asymmetry in the
distribution of large impact features over Callisto’s surface. “Callisto
may turn out to be the most heavily cratered body in the solar system,”
Torrence Johnson remarked. Garry Hunt was to add later on, “There’s just
not room for another crater on that body—it’s totally full.”
At the press conference, Brad Smith confirmed the earlier finding that
Io’s volcano Pele was quite dead—at least for now. Although P₄ had not
yet been looked at, all other volcanoes discovered by Voyager 1 were
still active, but no new plumes had been found. However, new ultraviolet
images of P₂ (Loki) suggested that the eruption had increased in size.
(In a later report, the imaging team announced that P₂ had increased in
height to 175 kilometers and had changed to a two-column plume.) The new
photographs of Jupiter’s ring showed it to be quite narrow and
ribbonlike, Dr. Smith announced. The artist’s drawing (released during
the Voyager 1 encounter), intended to show the outer edge of the ring,
turned out to be a good representation of the actual ring, Dr. Smith
said.
There seemed to be less high-speed sulfur and oxygen inside Jupiter’s
magnetosphere than there had been during the Voyager 1 encounter, George
Gloeckler announced. Voyager 2’s low energy charged particle instrument
was finding substantial amounts of carbon, silicon, magnesium, and other
elements of solar origin, but the Io-associated elements were almost
depleted. The ultraviolet instrument had found as much glowing sulfur in
Io’s torus as before, but less of it seemed to be raised to energies
high enough to leave the torus and be detected elsewhere in the
magnetosphere.
There were other indications of Jupiter’s changing weather. In a Voyager
report Sunday evening, Garry Hunt remarked, “One very exciting
observation came the other day which caused major excitement down in the
imaging area. We actually saw a white cloud starting to intrude across a
dark barge [large brownish oval-shaped feature in Jupiter’s northern
hemisphere]. Atmospheric scientists get very excited by that because
this is showing us how the colors layer themselves up—that white cloud
is clearly above the dark brown. We’re desperately trying to understand
the relationship of colors on Jupiter.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account