If you've been following the ESA JUICE Moon-Earth flyby this week, images from the main science camera, JANUS, have now been released 🌗🌏👇

They show more detail in smaller regions than NAVCAM & monitoring cameras, & give a first glimpse at what can be expected when JUICE gets to Jupiter & starts imaging Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, & more.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice/First_views_from_Juice_s_science_camera

Credit: ESA/JUICE/JANUS
JANUS developed by Leonardo SpA, ASI, INAF, DLR, CSIC-IAA, CEI-Open University
#JUICELEGA #SpaceScience

Two more colour pictures for you of JUICE's Earth flyby last night 📷

One showing just after closest approach, with the North Pacific & California coast in shot 🌴🏄‍♂️🏄‍♀️

The other has Earth receding into the distance & very nicely shows the darker Moon to the left as well, which JUICE had flown past just a day earlier 🌖🌎

Images & captions available here:

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice/Juice_rerouted_to_Venus_in_world_s_first_lunar-Earth_flyby

#JUICELEGA #SpaceScience

During the first step of humankind’s first-ever lunar-Earth flyby, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) captured this stunning view of Earth. The image covers the northern Pacific Ocean.

The image was taken by Juice monitoring camera 1 (JMC1) just at 23:48 CEST on 20 August 2024, as Juice was heading towards its closest approach to Earth.

#juicelega #juice #spacescience

Okey dokey, the first colour image of JUICE's flyby of Earth last night is out 📷

Some excellent work again by @stim3on to quickly process the available data ahead of ESA's scheduled 10:00CEST press release on the success of the joint Moon-Earth gravity assist 🌕🛰️🌏

More images should follow as they're downloaded & calibrated, including hopefully some time-lapse movies of both flybys – stay tuned 🙂👍

Next stop Venus ⚪️

#JUICELEGA #SpaceScience

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice/Juice_rerouted_to_Venus_in_world_s_first_lunar-Earth_flyby

Angela Dietz of the JUICE flight operations team at ESOC confirming that the spacecraft signal was successfully reacquired at 06:16 CEST this morning after last night’s flyby of Earth 🌏🛰️

Unofficially (🙂) all is well, no problems overnight, no exceptions, just like a regular contact – everyone’s happy 👍

Telemetry data are being downlinked. Image data from the monitoring cameras will follow soon.

#JUICELEGA #SpaceScience

We go again 💪

Back up at 5am, a quick stop at Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof to buy some food for breakfast, & back to Mission Control at ESOC to await the acquisition of signal from JUICE after last night’s Earth flyby around 6.30am 🛰️🌏

Let’s see what our home planet looked like to its monitoring cameras – we hope to have some out by 10am 📷✌️

In this part of Earth at least, it’s raining ☔️🤷‍♂️

#JUICELEGA

JUICE Moon-Earth flyby update:

After yesterday’s successful lunar encounter, ESA’s JUICE spacecraft has just made its closest approach to Earth, at 6900km above the Pacific.

It’s currently out of radio contact, with acquisition of signal due at 04:30 UTC, 06:30 here in Darmstadt 📡

We’ll then reconvene at ESOC Mission Control to await downlink of images, which we’ll process & have with you a few hours later.

Time for a bit more sleep … tick tock, tick tock … ⏰😴

#JUICELEGA #SpaceScience

For those of you with Instagram, you might appreciate my posting of the ESA JUICE monitoring camera images over there, if only because it comes with the obvious but still perfect soundtrack 😉

#JUICELEGA

https://www.instagram.com/p/C-5JpjaNLeh/?igsh=Y3ZmbHd0anV2NGE0

https://mastodon.social/@markmccaughrean/112993759569974780

That’s no moon – it’s the Moon 🌗

The first colour images from ESA JUICE’s close lunar encounter last night are out.

Taken by the monitoring cameras, both show sunlit craters & shadows on the surface with parts of the spacecraft in the foreground.

At the top of the second image, you can just make out Earth as a small dark circle, surrounded by the ring of its backlit atmosphere.

We arrive (t)here tonight 🛰️🌏

Kudos to @stim3on for the magical processing 🙇‍♂️

#JUICELEGA

6am in Darmstadt & our job for tonight is done 🥱

We've provided a small selection of colour JUICE Monitoring Camera images from the lunar flyby almost seven hours ago – you should see these published by ESA comms a bit later this morning 📰

Huge kudos to @stim3on for his efforts on wrangling these tricky cameras & their weird Bayer filters into shape 🙇‍♂️

Now for some sleep & we do it all again tomorrow night for the Earth flyby 🛰️🌏

#JUICELEGA #SpaceScience