March 1, 2007 8:56 AM PST
The New Horizons spacecraft began sending a limited number of photographs of Jupiter and some of its moons as it slingshots by the planet on its way to Pluto. The craft will reach a record speed of 52,000 miles per hour to reach Pluto by 2015.
The craft is filled with data from its Jupiter flyby but the location of its antenna makes transmitting the information back to Earth a difficult and drawn out process. The next trasmission to Earth is scheduled for March 7.
This image taken Feb. 28 shows a 180-mile-high plume from a volcano called Tvashtar which is located near the north pole of the Jovian moon Io. The plume was first seen about two weeks ago by the Hubble telescope. The dayside of the image was deliberately overexposed to show the plume.
Photo by NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
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