PASADENA, Calif. -- As the world -- Jupiter, that is -- turns, NASAs Cassini is there to catch it.

Newly released images captured by the Saturn-bound spacecraft show Jupiter in all its glory, as it rotates a full 360 degrees in the space of its 10-hour day.

As Cassini wends its way to a 2004 encounter with distant Saturn, the probe is gearing up to fly by Jupiter to gain a gravity boost to speed it on its way. The spacecraft will make its closest approach to Jupiter on December 30.

Leading up to, during and after that flyby, Cassini will continue to snap pictures of Jupiter.

The latest batch of images catch the equivalent of a Jovian Full Monty, including a nine-picture sequence taken between October 22 and 23. The series of true-color, narrow-angle images shows Jupiters intricate cloud features as they move from left to right before disappearing over the edge onto the nightside of the planet.

The standout of the bunch is Jupiters Great Red Spot, which can be seen moving onto the dayside in the third frame (below and to the left of the center of the planet) in the click-to-enlarge image at right. The storm has persisted for more than 300 years, or as long as humans have trained telescopes on the planet.

A set of two near-infrared images -- again, seen in the click-to-enlarge picture at right -- captured on October 17 and 22 show the Galilean satellite Europa, a Moon-sized icy satellite of Jupiter, at different phases in its orbit around Jupiter. (The upper image also captures Ganymede, larger than the planet Mercury and already showing distinct brightness variations across its surface.)

Cassini will keep Jupiters rings, satellite and occasionally its atmosphere in its sights through January 15, 2001, at which point the spacecraft will be looking back on a crescent Jupiter from a distance of 11 million miles (18 million kilometers).

At that time, the Cassini imaging team will return to making repeated images of the planet as the spacecraft speeds toward Saturn. They hope Cassini will capture its last Jupiter images on March 22, 2001.