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# Posted: 29 Oct 2006 03:08
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Pluto Space probe snaps Jupiter!
Blazing along its path to Pluto, NASA's New Horizons has come within hailing distance of Jupiter. The first picture of the giant planet from the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken Sept. 4, is a tantalizing promise of what's to come when New Horizons flies through the Jupiter system early next year.
New Horizons was still 291 million kilometers (nearly 181 million miles) away from Jupiter when LORRI took the photo. As New Horizons comes much closer, next January and February, LORRI will take more-detailed images.
"These first LORRI images of Jupiter are awe-inspiring," says New Horizons Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), where LORRI was designed and built. "New Horizons is speeding toward this majestic planet at 45,000 miles per hour, right on target for a close encounter on February 28 of next year. LORRI's resolution at Jupiter will be 125 times better than now, and we're really looking forward to getting the most detailed views of the Jovian system since Cassini's flyby in late 2000 and Galileo's final images in 2003."
LORRI snapped this image during a test sequence to help prepare for the Jupiter encounter observations. It was taken close to solar opposition, meaning that the Sun was almost directly behind the camera when it spied Jupiter. This makes Jupiter appear blindingly bright, about 40 times brighter than Pluto will be for LORRI's primary observations when New Horizons encounters the Pluto system in 2015. To avoid saturation, the camera's exposure time was kept to 6 milliseconds. This image was, in part, a test to see how well LORRI would operate with such a short exposure time.
New Horizons won't observe Jupiter again until early January 2007, when periodic monitoring will begin, followed by intensive observations at the end of February. The spacecraft will also continue to look at the Jovian magnetosphere for several months after closest approach.
"New Horizons is headed to a spectacular science encounter with the Jupiter system early next year," says mission Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute. "The first LORRI images of Jupiter just whet our appetite for the observations to come."
New Horizons, the first spacecraft to Pluto and the distant Kuiper Belt region, launched on Jan. 19, 2006. Stern leads the mission and science team as principal investigator. APL manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate and is operating the spacecraft in flight.
Cassini at Jupiter - Another fly past.
Jupiter, due to its size or mass is often passed by space probes enroute to another destination in the solar system.
The principal used by many probes is one called a "sling shot" NASA will send a probe directly at Jupiter, picking up speed all the time, due to the gravity and pull of the largest planet in the solar system. At the last moment, a course correction is carried out by the probe, sling shotting it past the giant planet.
The result is, a huge increase in speed for the probe, at no cost, and with minimal fuel used to achieve the higher velocity. In the case of the New Horizons space craft, this speed increase is priceless. Shaving many years off its journey.
If you remember they use this technique to reach the asteroid in the movie Armageddon! By sling shotting around the Moon. ( about the only scientific fact that was mostly true in that film.  )
The above image was captured by the Cassini probe enroute to saturn. It had a 7 year journey thanks to Jupiters gravity. As you can see, the image is stunning. Often the side mission of snapping Jupiter is a valuable tool for calibrating camera's and equipment.
It also acts simply as a wonderful opportunity to see yet more wonderful sights in our solar system.
Hopefully, in early 2007, we will be treated to some views of Jupiter on a par, or even better than the cassini images. As New Horizons flexes it's image gathering tools. 
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