Intricate Clouds of Jupiter

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

See intricate cloud patterns in the northern hemisphere of Jupiter in this new view taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.

Source / Courtesy Image

 

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has captured incredible images of Jupiter and it’s stunning cloud formations. Juno for the first time, took images of from the poles which has made the planet nearly unrecognizable. What you see in the images are huge complex and violent cyclones in the poles of Jupiter which measure hundreds of miles across. The images that Juno took of the massive storms look nearly like paintings.

Previous images of Jupiter have been taken at the equator where the orange, red and white hues dominate. These beautiful photographs show a side of the planet we have never seen before.

Juno will continue to orbit around Jupiter and gather data on the planet until at least July 2018.

 

For hundreds of years, this gaseous giant planet appeared shrouded in colorful bands of clouds extending from dusk to dawn, referred to as zones and belts.

The bands were thought to be an expression of Jovian weather, related to winds blowing eastward and westward at different speeds.

This animation illustrates a recent discovery by Juno that demonstrates these east-west flows, also known as jet-streams penetrate deep into the planet's atmosphere, to a depth of about 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers).

Due to Jupiter's rapid rotation (Jupiter's day is about 10 hours), these flows extend into the interior parallel to Jupiter's axis of rotation, in the form of nested cylinders. Below this layer the flows decay, possibly slowed by Jupiter's strong magnetic field.

The depth of these flows surprised scientists who estimate the total mass involved in these jet streams to be about 1% of Jupiter's mass (Jupiter's mass is over 300 times that of Earth).

This discovery was revealed by the unprecedented accuracy of Juno's measurements of the gravity field.

 

Love this,so beautiful. Always reminds me of Starry Night (Vincent Van Gogh)  



Source