Juice’s MAJIS instrument images Earth

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer’s (Juice) MAJIS instrument captured this image of the Indian Ocean and Malaysia on 20 August at 23:25 CEST from a distance of 11 250 km.

It being night at that time in this region, a visible camera would have seen nothing but a completely dark surface. MAJIS can also detect light in the thermal infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, allowing it to see what is invisible to our human eyes.

MAJIS stands for Moons and Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer. Once at Jupiter, MAJIS will observe Jupiter’s clouds and the ingredients in its atmosphere. It will also investigate the atmospheres of Jupiter’s icy moons as well as ices and minerals on their surfaces.

MAJIS can provide a spectrum with 1016 different colours, allowing scientists to investigate a planet or moon’s composition and physical properties. It has a resolution of 150 m at a distance of 1000 km.

The bottom strip is an image taken in the thermal infrared wavelength, providing a temperature map of the region. Dark spots correspond to lower temperatures.

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Processing notes: A combination of false colours is used in this image to enhance the different properties of the clouds in terms of composition and temperature.

[Image description: A strip of Earth’s surface, with white, light brown and dark brown patches.]