JunoCam Image Shows Multiple Storms Over Jupiter's South Pole
Posted on May 27, 2017
NASA shared this stunning image today. It shows multiple oval-shaped storms over Jupiter's south pole. The imagery was obtained by the JunoCam on NASA's Jupiter spacecraft. The image was captured on May 19 from an altitude of 32,000 miles.
Jupiter's south pole is very active. NASA says the oval images are cyclones. Some of the are as large as 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) in diameter.
The next flyby on July 11 will take Juno past Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the planet's well-known monster storm. Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, says in a statement, "Every 53 days, we go screaming by Jupiter, get doused by a fire hose of Jovian science, and there is always something new. On our next flyby on July 11, we will fly directly over one of the most iconic features in the entire solar system -- one that every school kid knows -- Jupiter's Great Red Spot. If anybody is going to get to the bottom of what is going on below those mammoth swirling crimson cloud tops, it's Juno and her cloud-piercing science instruments."
You can find more images from NASA's Juno mission on the Juno Instagram account, @nasajuno.