Jovian sunset (PJ24)

2020-02-03 23:16 UT
Credit : NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Björn Jónsson © cc nc sa
Submitted By : Bjorn_Jonsson
Mission Phase : PERIJOVE 24

An animation created from five images obtained on December 26, 2019. The images have been reprojected to polar projection. This particular sequence of images shows changes near Jupiter's evening terminator in the northern hemisphere as the sun sets. The images cover a period of 14 minutes. North is to the lower left. The large, prominent cloud feature at lower left is centered at planetographic latitude ~60 degrees north.

The animation has been 'tweened' to increase the apparent number of images and the smoothness of the changes near the terminator.

The original images have been heavily processed. The contrast and color has not been enhanced but the brightness has been greatly increased near the terminator. Some of the original images are quite noisy and dark near the terminator, in particular the last two since they were obtained with a shorter exposure time than the first three images. This results in some processing artifacts, including spurious brightness changes near the terminator, especially in the latter half of the video. Nevertheless, many interesting changes can be seen near the terminator as the sun sets, for example clouds that get more reddish and shadows that get darker and bigger.