Just Look at the Jaw-Dropping Detail of These Storms on Jupiter

By Nancy Atkinson December 9, 2021
Just Look at the Jaw-Dropping Detail of These Storms on Jupiter

The latest images from the Juno mission at Jupiter includes views of giant storms and vortexes on the gas giant world in amazing detail.

A new batch of images recently arrived at Earth from JunoCam, the visible light camera on board the Juno spacecraft. The camera has provided stunning views of Jupiter since the spacecraft’s arrival in 2016. Citizen scientists and imaging enthusiasts act as the camera’s virtual imaging team, participating in key steps of the process by making suggestions of areas on Jupiter to take pictures and doing the image editing work.

This lead image, edited by Kevin Gill, provides a 3-D-like view of a giant storm. How big are these swirling masses? The SETI Institute weighs in:

https://twitter.com/SETIInstitute/status/1467879769844895748

You can find all the raw data plus a gallery of processed images from people all around the world at the JunoCam website. Kevin Gill is one of our favorite image editing gurus, and so we feature his Juno images regularly. He also posts on Twitter, and has a Flickr gallery of the work he’s done with data from Juno, the Mars rovers, and more, including his personal astrophotography and landscape images.

https://twitter.com/kevinmgill/status/1469057429455335429

But wait, there's more! Juno's latest close pass by Jupiter, Perijove 38, includes view of the planet's northern hemisphere, and here's a view from another of our favorite image editors, Andrea Luck:

https://twitter.com/andrluck/status/1467129388080799744

Jupiter's northern hemisphere from 11,984 km altitude as seen by Juno, Perijove 38 on November 29, 2021. Credit: Nasa/SwRI/MSSS/AndreaLuck 

Juno also took a look at Jupiter's moon Io during this pass:

https://twitter.com/andrluck/status/1465828409582493705

During it’s time in orbit, Juno has made discoveries about Jupiter’s interior structure, magnetic field, and magnetosphere, and has found its atmospheric dynamics to be far more complex than scientists previously thought.

Find out more about the Juno mission here.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com