NASA’s Juno Spacecraft is currently orbiting Jupiter, taking some spectacular images as it studies the gas giant’s atmosphere. The spacecraft is making its next close pass to the planet on February 2nd, and the agency is asking the public to help it figure out where to point one of its cameras next.
Juno will approach Jupiter’s North Pole and will swing south, ending the flyby below the South Pole and will take pictures using JunoCam, a visible-light camera. NASA noted that the spacecraft is limited “by the amount of onboard data storage” is has onboard, so it has to be picky with what it takes pictures of. The mission planners have opened up a voting system for the public to help select what pictures they will take, and will open up voting during upcoming flybys as well.
Voting opened on Thursday, January 19th, and will close on Monday, January 23rd at 9AM PT (noon ET). NASA set up a community discussion page, which allowed users to select interesting points in Jupiter’s atmosphere, which in turn form the basis for the sites that are being voted on. There are 21 points up for voting, ranging from bands, turbulence, each pole, and other interesting looking features.