土星へ向かう途中のカッシーニは、2000年12月30日に木星へ最接近しました(約970万 km)。この画像はその前日、12月29日に約986万 km の距離から狭角カメラで撮影された木星の全体像です。カメラは3×3枚のモザイクを約1時間の間隔で2回撮影しており、その2回分(青・緑・750 nm、計54枚)を、ちょうど間の05:27 UTの一瞬にそろえて1枚にまとめています。南半球には大赤斑と白い楕円の渦の列、北赤道ベルトには白い雲の渦が見え、右側は夜に向かって暗くなっています。1ピクセルは約59 km です。
On its way to Saturn, Cassini passed Jupiter, coming closest on 30 December 2000 (about 9.7 million km). This portrait was taken with its narrow-angle camera the day before, on 29 December, from 9.86 million km. The camera shot a 3×3 mosaic twice, about an hour apart; this picture merges both passes (blue, green and 750 nm, 54 frames) at one moment between them, 05:27 UT. The Great Red Spot and a row of white ovals lie in the southern hemisphere, white clouds swirl in the North Equatorial Belt, and the right side fades toward night. Each pixel is about 59 km.
How it was made
Calibrated data (CISSCAL, I/F) from NASA's Planetary Data System, with SPICE navigation
Every frame placed from Jupiter's sunlit limb and its overlaps with the other frames
Winds measured from how far each latitude's clouds moved between the two passes; every frame's clouds carried to 05:27 UT by Jupiter's rotation and those winds. Motion the winds don't explain, such as the Great Red Spot turning, was measured between the passes and shared out by time
Red (619 nm) was not in these two passes: its detail is modelled from the green and 750 nm frames, and its colour on scales above about 1,000 km comes from Cassini's own 619 nm frames of an earlier polarizer sequence
Colour from the filter curves and the solar spectrum (grey clouds come out grey)
Notes
The camera's blur, measured from the picture itself (about 0.7 px), is undone and fine detail lightly sharpened.
For legibility the midtones are deepened, local contrast raised and the colour differences between clouds doubled, so the colours are stronger than the eye would see. Every setting is recorded.
Small gaps with no data in any frame (393 pixels) are filled from their surroundings. Nothing was cloned, enlarged or generated with AI.
NASA/JPL released a portrait from this sequence in 2003 (PIA04866, 27 frames). This version is rebuilt from the calibrated archive frames, with the two passes merged at one moment.
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