At a Tuesday Webcast press conference, NASA scientists revealed new information about Jupiter as we know it from photos taken by the New Horizons as it bounced off the Jovian atmosphere to gain speed toward its ultimate goal, Pluto. Photos and data of Jupiter and its moons taken during New Horizons' flyby are in the process of being analyzed.
The team of scientists included Stern; Jeff Moore, New Horizons Jupiter Encounter science team lead at the NASA Ames Research Center; Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; and John Spencer, New Horizons Jupiter Encounter Science Team deputy lead at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.
"Orientation and ordering across Io basically remain mysterious," Moore said.
New Horizons "has a lot to teach us about the evolution of our own moon," Stern said.
The scientists, who have been sifting through data and photos since New Horizons began sending them back after a February flyby of the Jupiter System, said they arrive to work each day with yet another new set of data and photos revealing new information.
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Photo by NASA/JHUAPL
