Cassini Sends Color Image of Jupiter

Cassini Sends Color Image of Jupiter

October 9, 2000

Contact:


Guy Webster, JPL, (818) 354-6278


Lori Stiles, University of Arizona, (520) 626-4402

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is beginning to return color images of Jupiter
as it nears the giant planet for a gravitational assist toward its
ultimate destination, Saturn. The first color image of Jupiter from
Cassini was taken from a distance of about 81 million kilometers (50
million miles) by Cassini's camera. It shows the colored latitudinal bands
encircling the planet in the upper atmosphere. Europa, one of Jupiter's
large moons, is seen at right, casting a shadow onto the planet.

The image is 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 December 30. Images taken as it approaches and
flies past will be used for studies of atmospheric dynamics, dark rings
and other features of Jupiter. Some of the studies will be in conjunction
with observations by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, which has been orbiting
and studying Jupiter since late 1995.

Additional information about Cassini is available online at:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

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.

Media Relations Office

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

California Institute of Technology

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Pasadena, Calif. 91109.

Telephone (818) 354-5011