Juice leaves Earth
Shortly after launch on 14 April, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, captured this stunning view of Earth. The coastline around the Gulf of Aden can be made out to the right of centre, with patchy clouds above land and sea.
The image was taken by Juice monitoring camera 1 (JMC1) at 14:42 CEST, following launch at 14:14 CEST. JMC1 is located on the front* of the spacecraft and looks diagonally up into a field of view that will eventually see deployed antennas, and depending on their orientation, part of one of the solar arrays.
JMC images provide 1024 x 1024 pixel snapshots. The images shown here are lightly processed with a preliminary colour adjustment.
*Additional technical information: “front” means +X side of the spacecraft (the opposite side, -X hosts the high gain antenna). JMC1 looks towards the +Y/+Z direction.
