NASA’s Juno spacecraft took a spectacular photograph of Jupiter. The Juno camera captured the’mocha swirls’ of clouds that can be seen in Jupiter’s mid-southern latitudes.
Juno — which is to continue studying Jupiter’s atmosphere until 2025 — caught the breathtaking view during its 36th low pass over the fifth planet in our solar system.
Near the center of the image, you can see a large cyclone. It spans approximately 250 miles (400 kms).
This is because the lower-level clouds are being swept away by the cyclone, which exposes some darker materials below.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured stunning images of Jupiter as a projection. They have revealed “mocha swirls” of clouds in Jupiter’s mid-southern latitudes.
Juno (pictured) — which is to continue studying Jupiter’s atmosphere until 2025 — caught the breathtaking view during its 36th low pass over the fifth planet in our solar system
The photograph has been modified — citizen scientist Brian Swift took a raw image from JunoCam and projected it onto a sphere to create the view shown above.
Juno took the first shot at 4:09 PDT on September 2, 2021. At that time, Juno was at 31 degrees South latitude.
The vehicle passed approximately 16,800 miles (27,000 kms) above the swirling clouds visible in the photo.
JunoCam members can view all raw JunoCam images and then process them themselves.
You can access them via the Juno Mission site.
Jupiter is essentially a massive ball of gas, composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with some heavy elements.
According to NASA, ‘Jupiter’s familiar stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.’
Last month, NASA researchers revealed that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot — a storm so big that it could easily engulf the Earth — extends much further down beneath the planet´s cloud tops than was previously thought.
Juno data revealed that the monster storm, while shrinking, still has a depth somewhere between 200–300 miles (350–500 kilometres).
In new, three-dimensional images of the planet released by the US space agency, the Great Red Spot — with its width of some 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometres) — somewhat resembles a fat pancake.
Last month, NASA researchers revealed that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot — a storm so big that it could engulf the Earth — extends further down beneath the planet´s cloud tops than thought
Scott Bolton from Southwest Research Institute was the mission’s chief scientist. He said there may not be an easy cut at the bottom.
He said, “It likely fades out slowly and keeps going down,”
According to Mr Bolton, the Great Red Spot may be the largest Jovian storm that has been measured using Juno’s gravity-mapping and microwave instruments.
Thousands of storms rage across Jupiter at any given time — forming beautiful and colourful swirls, plumes and filaments that seem to cover most the entire planet.
In the near future, June will be moving to measure the depth of the polar cyclones, which might penetrate even deeper beneath the clouds.
Bolton said, “I don’t think we would want to assume that we have the deepest.”
‘But the Great Red Spot is the largest and that makes it special by itself, and you might expect that it might be deeper just because of that.’
However, Jupiter is surrounded by jet streams that extend approximately 2,000 miles (3.200 kilometers) from the nearest source.
The Juno probe — depicted here in an artist’s impression — reached Jupiter on July 4, 2016, after a five-year, 1.8 billion-mile (2.8 billion kilometre) journey from Earth
‘These new observations from Juno open up a treasure chest of new information about Jupiter’s enigmatic observable features,’ added NASA’s Planetary Science Division director, Lori Glaze.
‘Each paper sheds light on different aspects of the planet’s atmospheric processes — a wonderful example of how our internationally-diverse science teams strengthen understanding of our solar system.’
Mr Bolton added: ‘Previously, Juno surprised us with hints that phenomena in Jupiter’s atmosphere went deeper than expected.
‘Now, we’re starting to put all these individual pieces together and getting our first real understanding of how Jupiter’s beautiful and violent atmosphere works — in 3D.’