Jupiter - From Earth to Juno

摘要

As Jupiter's 2017 apparition draws to a close, we can look back over what has happened with the planet's dynamic, ever-changing cloudtops. Fortunately, ground-based observers have a powerful and exciting new ally. NASA's Juno spacecraft went into a looping, 53-day-long orbit around the solar system's largest planet on July 5, 2016 (S&T: July 2016, p. 18), and its "public outreach" camera, JunoCam, started imaging at the first perijove (closest approach to the planet) 71/2 weeks later. Consequently, this has been a year in which professional and amateur ground-based observations have been more synergistic than ever before.