MEDIA GALLERY : Jupiter
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This color map of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across.
The map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter.
The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze.
Original caption and additional annotated versions are available from NASA's Planetary Photojournal.
The map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter.
The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze.
Original caption and additional annotated versions are available from NASA's Planetary Photojournal.
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Download
Data from the camera onboard NASA's Juno mission, called JunoCam, will be made available to the public for processing into their own images. An example of this type of collaboration is illustrated here with an image of Jupiter taken by NASA's Voyager mission, and processed by Björn Jónsson. The image highlights Jupiter's "Great Red Spot."
Additional images of Jupiter are available at NASA's Planetary Photojournal.
Additional images of Jupiter are available at NASA's Planetary Photojournal.
NASA/JPL/Björn Jónsson Download
The planet Jupiter is wide enough to fit 11 Earths across its clouded disk
NASA/JPL Download
Global Upheaval at Jupiter
Images in the visible-light and infrared parts of the spectrum highlight the massive changes roiling the atmosphere of Jupiter. In the visible-light images on the left that were obtained by amateur astronomers, Jupiter can be seen "losing" a brown-colored belt south of the equator called the South Equatorial Belt (SEB) from 2009 to 2010. This belt returned in 2011 and was still present in 2012. From 2011 to January 2012, a belt north of the equator known as the North Equatorial Belt (NEB) can be seen to be thinning out. In 2011, it whitened to an extent not seen in over a century. In March of 2012, after the last picture in this series was taken, the northern belt began to darken again.
Scientists compared the visible-light data to data obtained in infrared wavelengths (middle and right columns), which show progressively deeper levels in the Jovian atmosphere. The infrared images were obtained from NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, except for the 2011 image in the 8.7-micron wavelength (right column, third from the top), which was taken by the Subaru Telescope, also in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Those data showed a thickening of the deeper cloud decks in the northern belt during that time, and a partial thickening of the upper cloud deck. The South Equatorial Belt saw both levels of clouds thicken and then clear up. The infrared data also resolved brown elongated features in the whitened area of the North Equatorial Belt known as "brown barges" as distinct features and revealed them to be regions clearer of clouds and probably characterized by downwelling, dry air.
Also visible in the infrared observations are a series of blue-gray features that are the clearest and driest regions on the planet and show up as apparent hotspots in the infrared view because they reveal the radiation emerging from a very deep layer of Jupiter's atmosphere. Those hotspots disappeared from 2010 to 2011, but had reestablished themselves by June of this year, coincident with the whitening and re-darkening of the North Equatorial Belt.
The visible-light images were taken by A. Wesley (2009 and 2010), A. Kazemoto (2011) and C. Go (2012).
Original caption released with image: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16168
Images in the visible-light and infrared parts of the spectrum highlight the massive changes roiling the atmosphere of Jupiter. In the visible-light images on the left that were obtained by amateur astronomers, Jupiter can be seen "losing" a brown-colored belt south of the equator called the South Equatorial Belt (SEB) from 2009 to 2010. This belt returned in 2011 and was still present in 2012. From 2011 to January 2012, a belt north of the equator known as the North Equatorial Belt (NEB) can be seen to be thinning out. In 2011, it whitened to an extent not seen in over a century. In March of 2012, after the last picture in this series was taken, the northern belt began to darken again.
Scientists compared the visible-light data to data obtained in infrared wavelengths (middle and right columns), which show progressively deeper levels in the Jovian atmosphere. The infrared images were obtained from NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, except for the 2011 image in the 8.7-micron wavelength (right column, third from the top), which was taken by the Subaru Telescope, also in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Those data showed a thickening of the deeper cloud decks in the northern belt during that time, and a partial thickening of the upper cloud deck. The South Equatorial Belt saw both levels of clouds thicken and then clear up. The infrared data also resolved brown elongated features in the whitened area of the North Equatorial Belt known as "brown barges" as distinct features and revealed them to be regions clearer of clouds and probably characterized by downwelling, dry air.
Also visible in the infrared observations are a series of blue-gray features that are the clearest and driest regions on the planet and show up as apparent hotspots in the infrared view because they reveal the radiation emerging from a very deep layer of Jupiter's atmosphere. Those hotspots disappeared from 2010 to 2011, but had reestablished themselves by June of this year, coincident with the whitening and re-darkening of the North Equatorial Belt.
The visible-light images were taken by A. Wesley (2009 and 2010), A. Kazemoto (2011) and C. Go (2012).
Original caption released with image: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16168
NASA/IRTF/JPL-Caltech/NAOJ/A. Wesley/A. Kazemoto/C. Go
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This false-color view of Jupiter was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2006. The red color traces high-altitude haze blankets in the polar regions, equatorial zone, the Great Red Spot, and a second red spot below and to the left of its larger cousin. The smaller red spot is approximately as wide as Earth.
NASA, ESA, I. de Pater and M. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) Original release: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/solar-system/jupiter/2006/19/results/100/ Download
Jupiter as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in June 1999.
The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA) and Amy Simon (Cornell U.) Original release: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/solar-system/jupiter/1999/29/ Download
Image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 1, 2000, shows details of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and other features that were not visible in images taken earlier, when Cassini was farther from Jupiter.
The picture is a color composite, with enhanced contrast, taken from a distance of 28.6 million kilometers (17.8 million miles). It has a resolution of 170 kilometers (106 miles) per pixel. Jupiter's closest large moon, Io, is visible at left.
The picture is a color composite, with enhanced contrast, taken from a distance of 28.6 million kilometers (17.8 million miles). It has a resolution of 170 kilometers (106 miles) per pixel. Jupiter's closest large moon, Io, is visible at left.
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Full caption: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia02852 Download
The familiar banded appearance of Jupiter gradually gives way to a more mottled appearance closer to the north pole in this true color image taken in 2000 by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The cause of the difference is not well understood. Juno will be the first spacecraft to get an up-close view of the planet's unexplored polar regions.
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Full caption: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02856 Download
Jupiter's northern half (its northern hemisphere) is shown, from pole to equator, in this map produced from images taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2000. Cassini did not fly over either of Jupiter's poles, but scientists were able to process their collection of images to create a view as if one were looking down onto the pole
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Full caption: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07783 Download
Jupiter's southern half (its southern hemisphere) is shown, from pole to equator, in this map produced from images taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2000. Cassini did not fly over either of Jupiter's poles, but scientists were able to process their collection of images to create a view as if one were looking down onto the pole.
Original caption and additional download options: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07784
Original caption and additional download options: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07784
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Download
Diagram illustrating the different constituents of Jupiter and Earth and their relative proportions.
NASA/JPL Download