PIA23610: Mocha Swirls in Jupiter's Turbulent Atmosphere


Mocha Swirls in Jupiter’s Turbulent Atmosphere

Caption:

During its 36th low pass over Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this view of striking cloud bands and swirls in the giant planet's mid-southern latitudes. The dark, circular vortex near the center of the image is a cyclone that spans roughly 250 miles (about 400 kilometers). The color at its center is likely to be the result of descending winds that cleared out upper-level clouds, revealing darker material below.

Citizen scientist Brian Swift used a raw JunoCam image digitally projected onto a sphere to create this view. It has been rotated so that north is up. The original image was taken on Sept. 2, 2021, at 4:09 p.m. PDT (7:09 p.m. EDT). At the time, the spacecraft was about 16,800 miles (about 27,000 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops, at a latitude of about 31 degrees south.

Background Info:

JunoCam's raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at
https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing . More information about NASA citizen science can be found at https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and https://www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience .

More information about Juno is at https://www.nasa.gov/juno and https://missionjuno.swri.edu . For more about this finding and other science results, see https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/science-findings .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Jupiter
System Jupiter
Target Type Planet
Mission Juno
Instrument Host Juno
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument JunoCam
Detector
Extra Keywords Atmosphere, Color, Rotation, Visual
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2021-11-09
Date in Caption
Image Credit Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing by Brian Swift © CC BY
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23610
Identifier PIA23610