Image Advisory -- Cassini Cameras Capture Views of Jupiter As It Rotates

New images of Jupiter taken by the NASA's Cassini spacecraft show the changing face of the planet as it twirls more than 360 degrees. Although it is the biggest planet in our solar system, Jupiter hurries through a complete rotation in about 10 hours.

The images are an early portion of a sequence that Cassini is taking to track changes in Jupiter's clouds over a period of several weeks. Another new image from Cassini, taken through an infrared filter, shows one of Jupiter's large moons, Europa, gleaming brightly as it passes in front of the planet.

The images are available from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/jupiter

and from the web site of the Cassini Imaging Science team at the University of Arizona, Tucson, at http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/

Cassini will pass most closely to Jupiter, at about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) away, on Dec. 30. Images taken as it approaches and flies past will be used for studies of atmospheric dynamics, dark rings and other features of Jupiter. Cassini is passing Jupiter on its way to its ultimate destination, Saturn.

Additional information about the flyby is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby

Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the Cassini and Galileo missions for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.