View Changes as Jupiter Rotates

New images of Jupiter taken by the NASA’s Cassini spacecraft
show the changing face of the planet as it twirls more than 360
degrees. Although it is the biggest planet in our solar system,
Jupiter hurries through a complete rotation in about 10 hours.
The images are an early portion of a sequences that Cassini is
taking to track changes in Jupiter’s clouds over a period of
several weeks. Another new image from Cassini, taken through an
infrared filter, shows one of Jupiter’s large moons, Europa,
gleaming brightly as it passes in front of the planet.

The images are available from NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., at

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/jupiter

and from the web site of the Cassini Imaging Science team at the
University of Arizona, Tucson, at

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/ .

Cassini will pass most closely to Jupiter, at about 10
million kilometers (6 million miles) away, on Dec. 30. Images
taken as it approaches and flies past will be used for studies of
atmospheric dynamics, dark rings and other features of Jupiter.
Cassini is passing Jupiter on its way to its ultimate
destination, Saturn.

Additional information about the flyby is available at

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby .

Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the Cassini and
Galileo missions for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington,
D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena.