8K
July 19, 1994 09:47 UT
29K
July 19, 1994 09:51 UT
34K
July 19, 1994 09:54 UT
32K
July 19, 1994 09:58 UT
16K
July 19, 1994 10:01 UT
12K
July 19, 1994 10:05 UT
These partial image of the comet fragment K impact represents the return of image search "jailbars" - groups of 2 lines every 80 lines.
The data, obtained on July 19, 1994 (Earth receive time), shows the entry of fragment K, which looks like a bright flare on the dark side of Jupiter (directly visible from Galileo's perspective) between the terminator and the dark limb of the planet lasting approximately 35 seconds. The flare at its brightest is about 10 percent the total brightness of Jupiter (at this phase angle = 50 degrees).
The camera resolution is about 2,500 kilometers per pixel at the viewing distance of about 1.5 astronomical units. Possible additional and phenomena are visible, but we cannot yet distinquish them clearly from cosmic ray hits; some features are Galilean satellites.
The data are not a series of snapshots of Jupiter. Rather, for purposes of increasing sensitivity and time-sampling, Jupiter was trailed in a directon roughly perpendicular to the line that connects the center of Jupiter with the impact site. The result is that Jupiter appears as a smeared (in one dimension) diagonal bar, with the limb to the right and the terminator to the left. This process was reset and repeated five times in each image frame. As a consequence time increases down the diagonal bars and to the right across the frame. Fragment K is the bright spot beyond the terminator; approximately 5.4 seconds separate the jailbar samples and 30 seconds separates each diagonal scan. The entire frame covers about 2.5 minutes of the K impact.
Images, Images, Images