Looks like you're using an older browser. For the best experience possible, please upgrade your browser or download a modern browser.
We recommend these free browsers: Firefox or Chrome
For the optimal Juno experience please install Chrome. Download Chrome. Or continue to explore features of the Juno spacecraft using the links on your left.
This enhanced-color image of a mysterious dark spot on Jupiter
seems to reveal a Jovian “galaxy” of swirling storms.
Juno acquired this JunoCam image on Feb. 2, 2017, at 5:13
a.m. PDT (8:13 a.m. EDT), at an altitude of 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers)
above the giant planet’s cloud tops. This publicly selected
target was simply titled “Dark Spot.” In ground-based images it was
difficult to tell that it is a dark storm.
Citizen scientist Roman Tkachenko enhanced the color to
bring out the rich detail in the storm and surrounding clouds. Just south of the dark storm is a bright,
oval-shaped storm with high, bright, white clouds, reminiscent of a swirling
galaxy. As a final touch, he rotated the image 90 degrees, turning the picture
into a work of art.
NASA's Juno mission accomplished a close flyby
of Jupiter on Monday, March 27, successfully completing its fourth science
orbit.
All of Juno's science instruments and the
spacecraft's JunoCam were operating during the flyby, collecting data that is
now being returned to Earth. Juno’s next close flyby of Jupiter will occur on
May 19, 2017.
--- Original Post:
NASA's
Juno spacecraft will make its fifth flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops
on Monday, March 27, at 1:52 a.m. PDT (4:52 a.m. EDT, 8:52 UTC).
At
the time of closest approach (called perijove), Juno will be about 2,700 miles
(4,400 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops, traveling at a speed of about
129,000 miles per hour (57.8 kilometers per second) relative to the gas-giant
planet. All of Juno's eight science instruments will be on and collecting data
during the flyby.
"This will be our fourth science
pass -- the fifth close flyby of Jupiter of the mission -- and we are excited
to see what new discoveries Juno will reveal,” said Scott Bolton,
principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San
Antonio. "Every time we get near Jupiter’s cloud tops, we learn
new insights that help us understand this amazing giant planet."
The Juno science team continues to analyze returns from previous
flybys. Scientists have discovered that Jupiter's magnetic fields are more
complicated than originally thought, and that the belts and zones that give the
planet's cloud tops their distinctive look extend deep into the its interior. Observations of the energetic
particles that create the incandescent auroras suggest a complicated current
system involving charged material lofted from volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io.
Peer-reviewed
papers with more in-depth science results from Juno's first flybys are expected
to be published within the next few months.
Juno
launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit
around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars
low over the planet's cloud tops -- as close as about 2,600 miles (4,100
kilometers). During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud
cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet's
origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
