Movement at Jupiter’s South Pole

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Caption:

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This animation depicts the invisible forces at work at Jupiter's south pole that keep the five circumpolar cyclones there in position relative to each other and to the polar cyclone – the central cyclone directly over the pole.

Blue arrows depict the forces that drive the cyclones southward, toward the polar cyclone. Green arrows depict the rejections force generated by the polar cyclone, preventing the circumpolar cyclones from occupying the pole position. Pink arrows demonstrate mutual forces the circumpolar cyclones project, causing them to remain an equal distance from one another, in a pentagonal configuration.

Background Info:

Data used to generate this animation was acquired by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft. JIRAM "sees" in infrared light not visible to the human eye. It was designed to capture the infrared light emerging from deep inside Jupiter, probing the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below Jupiter's cloud tops.

More information about Juno is at https://www.nasa.gov/juno and https://missionjuno.swri.edu .

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