NASA Flying Observatory Makes Observations of Jupiter Previously Only Possible from Space
Date:
1/06/2017
Jupiter was observed with SOFIA by stepping the FORCAST spectroscopic slit across the planet. The left-hand panel shows a visible-light image of Jupiter with blue rectangles illustrating the orientation and size of the FORCAST slit. For each pointing of the telescope, the spectrum was made at every position along the slit. The two right-hand panels show SOFIA images of Jupiter made from combining the wavelengths in two of the slits. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is evident and has rotated between the different observations. The total information content is full images of Jupiter at all wavelengths between 17.9 and 32.9 microns, or equivalently, spectra at each position.
Credit:
Visible light image: Anthony Wesley. FORCAST slitscan: NASA/SOFIA/Fletcher et al.
Image Number:
SCI2017_0002
Astronomical Objects:
planet
