Earth viewed and heard from Juno

December 11, 2013 • 5:57 am

by Matthew Cobb

Juno is the name of a NASA spacecraft which is heading for Jupiter, where it will arrive on 4 July 2016. To get there it performed a gravity-aided swing through the solar system, including a fly-past Earth two months ago, on 9 October. NASA have now released two fantastic videos of the fly-past. The first shows Juno’s view of the Earth and the moon as it approaches us and our natural satellite. The celestial ballet is exquisite. The second video is quite eerie. NASA arranged for hundreds of radio hams to send the message “Hi” in Morse Code to Juno as she whizzed by, and Juno recorded the result. The outcome is what First Contact would sound like were one of our  probes to go past an inhabited radio-using planet, or what it would sound like to aliens, were they to come mooching around. Quite amazing. To see how they did it, watch the third video.

Earth and the moon:

First Contact:

How NASA set up the “Hi Juno” experiment:

 

27 thoughts on “Earth viewed and heard from Juno”

  2. I was about to comment (well, complain) about the low res of the 1st video, but the notes at the end pointed out that it was using a lower resolution system needed to navigate by tracking stars.
    This video shows clearly how small the moon really is, compared to earth.

  4. While studying physics I read quite often how far away the moon is from Earth, but it always surprises me to actually see it like that. The moon never came back!
    I loved the title to the second video “Hams Detected From Space…” The soundtrack was pretty awesome too, sounded like the equation song (can type the actual title) by Aphex Twin – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9xMuPWAZW8

  6. This was great! You don’t appreciate how far away the moon is from earth until you see it from that perspective.

    Who says we atheists are hollow!? I always feel so awed when I see stuff like this – it gives a perspective we normally never see, as if to say, “hey, space is real”. Oddly, I felt that way when I first saw an x-ray of my skull. I think a big part of me thought, “darn, I’m not a robot after all and I’ll just die like all the humans”. 🙂

  7. sigh. I read “Juno detects hams from space” and I thought “hmmm, I had not heard of a spill of hams”.

    I guess that’s what I get for working in a meat department…

      1. I’m surrounded by amateur radio folks. I rebelled and refused to get my licence. I’m still holding strong!

  9. I became teary-eyed watching and listening to this. Of being alive at this time, of again seeing our possibilities, of the joy of it all and how much wonder this delightful event reveals.

    Thanks.

  11. I get a chuckle out of the British interpretation of “mooching”, kind of meaning loitering or wandering aimlessly;-) In the U.S., and, I believe, in Canuckland, mooching means cadging, or bumming (maybe Brits wouldn’t use this expression this way;-) , as in taking stuff from others without any payment – not exactly stealing, but as in “Can I mooch a cigarette/dollar from you…”. Funny all our different Englishes…

    1. Kind of like the word “hork” – Canadians know it as both “steal” and squirt fluid out of your nose or mouth. Bob & Doug popularized hork=steal.

      1. I only know hork as coughing up phlegm. Didn’t know the Hosers’ version;-)

        Do you use mooch like me or like UK?

      2. I don’t know what they thought of Bob & Doug up in Canada, but boy do I miss them. Silly and immature, yeah, but just really funny to me for some reason.

        1. Bob & Doug were big in Canada. They came to exist because Canadian programming has to include a percentage of Canadian content so for laughs they created this completely exaggerated Canadian stereotype and it became really popular. I remember seeing an interview with them and they figured it was popular in the US because Bob and Doug were like good ol’ boys. I always thought this song with Geddy Lee of Rush was funny and that Geddy Lee is so humble and nice.

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