This image was taken by Juice's monitoring camera 1 (JMC1) at 23:25 CEST on 19 August 2024, shortly after the spacecraft made its closest pass by the Moon. This maneuver successfully altered Juice's trajectory, setting it on course for an Earth flyby on 20 August 2024.
The image reveals subtle color variations across the Moon's surface features, providing a unique perspective of our celestial neighbor.
The Juice monitoring cameras were primarily designed to observe the deployment of the spacecraft's various booms and antennas, particularly during the critical phase immediately following launch. While these cameras were not intended for scientific imaging or lunar photography, the scientific camera, JANUS, is tasked with capturing high-resolution images during the flybys of Earth, the Moon, and Venus, as well as during its exploration of Jupiter and its icy moons starting in 2031.
JMC1 is positioned on the front of the spacecraft, with a field of view that includes deployed antennas and, depending on their orientation, a portion of one of the solar arrays. The camera captures images at a resolution of 1024 x 1024 pixels. The images released have been lightly processed by Simeon Schmauss and Mark McCaughrean.
[Image description: The image shows a view of the Moon's cratered surface at the top, as seen by the Juice monitoring camera 1 (JMC1) at 23:25 CEST on 19 August 2024, soon after Juice's closest approach to the Moon. Parts of the spacecraft are visible on the left side of the image.]
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