JUICE-JANUS observations of Earth in preparation for the JANUS investigation of Jupiter's atmosphere

Abstract. JANUS (Jovis, Amorum ac Natorum Undique Scrutator), the high-resolution camera on the JUICE mission (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer), obtained observations of the Earth during and short-after a Lunar and Earth Gravitational Assist maneuver (LEGA) that was run on August 19–20, 2024. We report on the observations of the Earth that were acquired on August 20, 2024 at a closest approach to the surface of 8,408 km, and on September 9, 2024 at a distance of 564,300 km. The close approach observations covered a narrow strip of the Earth, starting in the night-side of the planet and moving over the terminator and day-side. The later observation provided a low spatial resolution portrait of the Earth and the Moon. Here we examine JANUS observations of the Earth as an example of the different science topics that will be addressed in future observations of Jupiter's atmosphere. The Earth night-side images show atmospheric airglow, clouds illuminated by a full Moon, fires in rural areas, lights over the ocean from maritime traffic, city lights, no firm detections of lightning, and two meteor candidates compatible with meteoroids of 1–30 g entering Earth's atmosphere. The day-side images show crepuscular rays under extreme incidence angles, atmospheric gravity waves on elevated cirrus, sun glint on multi-filter images of the tropical Western Pacific, convective storms, internal waves in the ocean and multiple cloud systems at a variety of spatial resolutions. Some images acquired with the panchromatic filter showed islands such as Luzon and the Big Island of Hawaii. We compare spectral trends of the ocean and various cloud systems extracted from JANUS multi-spectral images with spectra from the EnMAP and PRISMA satellites. JANUS images acquired on September 9, 2024 allow to form a multi-spectral view of the Earth at low spatial resolution. The data confirm the expected instrument performance in terms of optical quality and multi-wavelength radiometry precision, and the ensemble of observations contains a wide variety of features that are good analogs to multiple systems in Jupiter's atmosphere.

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Publication Details

Journal
Annales Geophysicae
Published
2026-10-13
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-44-1043-2026
Citations
3
Primary Topic
Astro and Planetary Science
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
9.47

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article

JUICE-JANUS observations of Earth in preparation for the JANUS investigation of Jupiter's atmosphere

Arrate Antuñano, Amy A. Simon, Livio Agostini, C. Tubiana et al.
3 citations
Annales Geophysicae
Astro and Planetary Science
9.47
article

JUICE-JANUS observations of Earth in preparation for the JANUS investigation of Jupiter's atmosphere

Arrate Antuñano, Amy A. Simon, Livio Agostini, C. Tubiana, Ganna Portyankina, Alice Lucchetti, T. Roatsch, Inès Belgacem, Mitsuteru Sato, R. Hueso, Alessio Aboudan, R. Politi, Elke Kersten, Michael Aye, Ry Evill, F. Trauthan, P. Palumbo, Vincenzo Della Corte, Nicole Schmitz, Angelo Zinzi, Luca Penasa, Stubbe Faurschou Hviid, Yoav Yosef Yair, Katrin Stephan, Athena Coustenis, Klaus‐Dieter Matz, Jose Maria Castro, M.R. Patel, Luisa María Lara, Takahashi Yukihiro, Junichi Haruyama
article en
3 citations

Abstract

Abstract. JANUS (Jovis, Amorum ac Natorum Undique Scrutator), the high-resolution camera on the JUICE mission (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer), obtained observations of the Earth during and short-after a Lunar and Earth Gravitational Assist maneuver (LEGA) that was run on August 19–20, 2024. We report on the observations of the Earth that were acquired on August 20, 2024 at a closest approach to the surface of 8,408 km, and on September 9, 2024 at a distance of 564,300 km. The close approach observations covered a narrow strip of the Earth, starting in the night-side of the planet and moving over the terminator and day-side. The later observation provided a low spatial resolution portrait of the Earth and the Moon. Here we examine JANUS observations of the Earth as an example of the different science topics that will be addressed in future observations of Jupiter's atmosphere. The Earth night-side images show atmospheric airglow, clouds illuminated by a full Moon, fires in rural areas, lights over the ocean from maritime traffic, city lights, no firm detections of lightning, and two meteor candidates compatible with meteoroids of 1–30 g entering Earth's atmosphere. The day-side images show crepuscular rays under extreme incidence angles, atmospheric gravity waves on elevated cirrus, sun glint on multi-filter images of the tropical Western Pacific, convective storms, internal waves in the ocean and multiple cloud systems at a variety of spatial resolutions. Some images acquired with the panchromatic filter showed islands such as Luzon and the Big Island of Hawaii. We compare spectral trends of the ocean and various cloud systems extracted from JANUS multi-spectral images with spectra from the EnMAP and PRISMA satellites. JANUS images acquired on September 9, 2024 allow to form a multi-spectral view of the Earth at low spatial resolution. The data confirm the expected instrument performance in terms of optical quality and multi-wavelength radiometry precision, and the ensemble of observations contains a wide variety of features that are good analogs to multiple systems in Jupiter's atmosphere.

Annales GeophysicaeVol. 44(2)
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Goddard Space Flight Center (US), European Space Operations Centre (DE), University of Padua (IT), Reichman University (IL), University of the Basque Country (ES), The Open University (GB), Université Paris Cité (FR), Hokkaido University (JP), Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (IT), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JP), Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte (IT), European Space Agency (FR), Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) (DE), Sorbonne Université (FR), Sorbonne Paris Cité (FR), European Space Astronomy Centre (ES), Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology (IT), Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (JP), Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (ES), Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova (IT), Freie Universität Berlin (DE), National Institute for Astrophysics (IT)
Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Agencia Estatal de Investigación
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
Astro and Planetary Science
9.47
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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