Dark and Stormy Jupiter

Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

This image captures the intensity of the jets and vortices in Jupiter’s North North Temperate Belt.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft took this color-enhanced image at 10:31 p.m. PDT on May 23, 2018 (1:31 a.m. EDT on May 24), as Juno performed its 13th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, the spacecraft was about 4,900 miles (7,900 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the gas giant planet at a northern latitude of about 41 degrees. The view is oriented with south on Jupiter toward upper left and north toward lower right.

Source / Image Courtesy

The movie utilizes imagery derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno mission during its fourth pass over the massive planet. Infrared cameras are used to sense the temperature of Jupiter’s atmosphere and provide insight into how the powerful cyclones at Jupiter's poles work.

In the animation, the yellow areas are warmer (or deeper into Jupiter’s atmosphere) and the dark areas are colder (or higher up in Jupiter’s atmosphere).

In this picture the highest “brightness temperature” is around 260K (about -13°C) and the lowest around 190K (about -83°C).

Secrets lie deep within Jupiter, shrouded in the solar system's strongest magnetic field and most lethal radiation belts.