Welcome to Discussion

Jupiter has a dynamic atmosphere where winds in the belts (brown) and zones (white) go in opposite directions. Storms develop and evolve, and other atmospheric features come and go.  An imaging team, the scientists that operate the cameras on NASA missions, always begins with a discussion phase that covers what we know and what we would like to learn.  You are a member of our JunoCam virtual imaging team.  This discussion page is a place for general thoughts about Jupiter and your questions and ideas.

Current Round

PJ74 Encounter

A little Io and Jupiter in the dark
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Campaigns

Campaigns are topics for discussion, and may become candidates for targeting during Perijove passes.

Jovian Moons

Images of Io, Europa, Ganymede or Callisto

Discuss

Rings

When the lighting is right

Discuss

Storm Movies

Timelapse sequences to see clouds in motion

Discuss

Lightning

Trying to capture a flash

Discuss
Skip Cyllindrical Map

Cylindrical Map

We use images from amateur astronomers (uploaded on the Planning page) to create a new cylindrical map every 14 days. This is the latest one! We have identified long-lived storms as Points of Interest (POI’S) and invite you to share your thoughts about them.
spot turbulance [ID: 11] - currently : -14.058° latitude, 245.016° longitude A Whirl of a Pearl [ID: 1181] - currently : -39.24° latitude, 33.444° longitude Between the Pearls [ID: 1154] - currently : -41.148° latitude, 272.124° longitude Edge of Great Red Spot [ID: 172] - currently : -21.582° latitude, 238.644° longitude HotSpot [ID: 1048] - currently : 6.138° latitude, 228.888° longitude Lower Great Red Spot Atmospheric Flow [ID: 159] - currently : -30.474° latitude, 233.82° longitude Oval BA [ID: 94] - currently : -26.082° latitude, 327.312° longitude Random Spot [ID: 1224] - currently : 20.88° latitude, 43.596° longitude Small White Storm [ID: 154] - currently : 50.94° latitude, 147.672° longitude South Equatorial Belt [ID: 128] - currently : -10.296° latitude, 290.484° longitude Sting of pearls [ID: 25] - currently : -40.752° latitude, 191.664° longitude String of pearl [ID: 20] - currently : -39.618° latitude, 81.54° longitude String of pearl [ID: 24] - currently : -38.862° latitude, 340.452° longitude String of pearl [ID: 26] - currently : -40.752° latitude, 118.008° longitude String of pearls [ID: 23] - currently : -38.016° latitude, 62.424° longitude String of Pearls [ID: 76] - currently : -40.374° latitude, 154.44° longitude The Great Red Spot [ID: 1052] - currently : -21.582° latitude, 249.912° longitude Wake [ID: 122] - currently : -22.338° latitude, 260.784° longitude Wake turbulance [ID: 1086] - currently : -13.68° latitude, 255.528° longitude White spot [ID: 13] - currently : 15.246° latitude, 269.064° longitude White Spot Z [ID: 27] - currently : 36.666° latitude, 194.292° longitude Within the Wake of the Great Red Dot [ID: 156] - currently : -30.222° latitude, 253.656° longitude
map : 2025-05-03 UT
Cylindrical map generated from data submitted via the JunoCam Planning section.
Skip Points of Interest

Points of Interest

POI suggestion has been disabled due to the orientation of Juno, Jupiter, and the Sun. POI based discussion of existing POIs is still open.
-53.244°, 274.644°
comments : 0
Bread with jelly
71.676°, 160.2°
comments : 2
spot turbulance
-14.058°, 245.016°
comments : 11

View All Points of Interest

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Notes about cylindrical maps and perijove passes

In its 53-day orbit, Juno spends most of the time distant from Jupiter. The spacecraft swoops from the north to the south pole in just 2 hours, which we call a "perijove pass".  That means that the close-up images JunoCam can take are restricted to just a swath of longitude, not the entire globe.   JunoCam points out along the solar arrays, and for most perijove passes the solar arrays are oriented to the sun, so JunoCam is pointing 90 degrees from the sun.

As time goes on Juno’s orbit is moving around Jupiter.  The most distant point of the orbit is moving to Jupiter’s night side.  Perijove (“PJ”), the closest point in the orbit, is moving more to the sun-side, which impacts JunoCam because this moves Jupiter off to the side of our field of view.   A simple comparison of the images collected at PJ9 to PJ10 in the Processing gallery shows how the geometry is changing the shape of the images.

For those of you who have been participating since the beginning, we initially used this page to identify Points of Interest (POIs).  We would then vote on which POI’s to take pictures of on any given perijove pass.  This was a concept that we developed for Juno’s 14-day mission plan.   The decision to stay in a 53-day orbit means that the viewing geometry changes more and this impacts our ability to predict what will be in JunoCam’s field of view.   (To see the POI’s that were selected in the past you can go to the Voting page.)

General Comments

If you'd like to share commentary on Jupiter's atmosphere that is not related to a specific Point of Interest, please contribute below.

347 Comments

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  1. comment by Jeanmariepelt-24 on 2024-02-14 15:40 UT

    The zeta function and Rheimans hypothesis, plus color theory and the speed of light mean earth and mars are the same at different points in time, can anyone hear me? NASA I’m trying to help. I have the equations you need but you won’t open your eyes

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  2. comment by Nosferatu-Chicago2024 on 2024-01-02 21:38 UT

    Thank you for accepting my request to join. I just read an article about the moon, lo. Under 1000 miles close? Amazing! Fascinating!

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  3. comment by BrianSwift on 2023-12-04 07:30 UT

    From the Image Processing Welcome message at https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing#Welcome

    "

    JunoCam is now showing the effects of that radiation on some of its parts. PJ56 images show a reduction in our dynamic range and an increase in background and noise. We invite citizen scientists to explore new ways to process these images to continue to bring out the beauty and mysteries of Jupiter and its moons.

    "

    Being part of the JunoCam image processing community, gaining a clearer understanding of the challenges would enable us to enhance our image processing techniques. Transparently sharing technical details, insights, and ongoing analysis from the project would boost our efficiency and improve our ability to devise effective workarounds.

    The following image compares green channel PJ55_72 transformed with a very preliminary model of the image corruption issue with PJ56_191 raw data:

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  4. comment by BrianSwift on 2023-08-26 23:34 UT

    Data from recent orbits include "marble movie" images which use only two color filters, Blue and Red. What is the motivation for using two filters instead of three? And can you discuss how these long image sequences are used by the project.

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