Image sequence of seven acquisitions performed by the JANUS instrument onboard ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) covering an area of sky measuring 1.3 x 1.7 degrees sky. The image at the centre is eta Cyg (the twelfth star in brightness order in Cygnus constellation). Many other stars light up as the integration time increases from about 2 to 200 milliseconds.
The star field was selected to avoid a complex pointing request to Juice, involving thermal gradients on the instrument, while allowing JANUS to observe stars of different brightness and spectral type, to verify the optical quality, distortion and spectral response.
About Juice
Juice is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. After an eight-year journey to Jupiter, it will make detailed observations of the gas giant and its three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. This ambitious mission will characterise these moons with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.