Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran
Five years and one month following its launch at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on July 4, 2016, the Juno spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter. En route, Juno had reached a maximum speed of 384 miles per hour. On arrival, Juno - heavily armored against the "magnetic swarm of highly energized charged particles" - settled into a polar orbit around our most massive planet.
Among its many scientific instruments was JunoCam, a camera that took some astonishing images. As Scott Bolton writes in American Scientist, JunoCam revealed a "beauty that is almost beyond belief.”
The planet is beautiful, but it’s a savage beauty. Jupiter's atmosphere is a toxic mix of ammonia, hydrogen, helium, methane, nitrogen, and sulfur, along with traces of water. Always in turmoil, the atmosphere is roiled by powerful winds that produce swirling clouds and "Earth-size cyclones.”
Who creates these extraordinary images? The answer is both surprising and fascinating: citizen scientists. As Bolton observes:
"The citizen scientist is not modifying NASA images; they are creating the images themselves. They are the first humans to see Juno's discoveries."
As Juno orbits Jupiter, JunoCam "captures narrow strips with three color filters," generating a tremendous amount of digital information that has to be processed. That processing is performed mostly by volunteers from the public, or "citizen scientists."
Ponder this for a moment. In Juno, we are witnessing the coupling of highly specialized technologists and scientists with "citizen scientists" who crunch the data and reveal these images of creation. No doubt, a model for future efforts.
Edited 7/30/20