What Did NASA Photograph On Jupiter? | Real Pictures

 

with a whopping 79 moons immensely powerful winds mysterious sounds swirling patterns and bright aurorae it goes without

 saying that Jupiter has long been an

 object of fascination wonder and intrigue several attempts have been made to discover more about the large planet for decades now and nasa's 1.13 billion dollar Juno Mission might just be the most successful and

 groundbreaking yet it's only fitting that the spacecraft that has uncovered so much about Jupiter was named after the roman goddess Juno, Jupiter's wife we see what you did there NASA welcome to Factnominal and in today's article we're going to take a look at the amazing decade long journey taken by the Juno spacecraft for years now mankind has been enchanted by Jupiter and has made several attempts to study the planet a total of nine missions have been carried out in an attempt to discover more about the biggest planet of our solar system all while exploring other celestial bodies Jupiter lies 365 million miles at its closest point to earth and when it's at its farthest it lies about 600 million miles away studying the planet has been no simple feat owing to its gaseous atmosphere lack of solid surface to land on enormous size and powerful magnetic field and deadly radiation despite all odds on august 5th 2011 nasa launched its ambitious Juno mission to take on the gas giant and reveal the story of Jupiter's formation and evolution the task well it wasn't an easy one but Juno was up for the challenge and would orbit the planet and get as close as it possibly could after making several changes to orbit and maneuvers the spacecraft made a successful entry into Jupiter's orbit on July 4th 2016.

 among many other high-tech instruments like a magnetometer microwave radiometer and energetic particle detector instrument Juno had a special visible light camera telescope installed to capture the best pictures of Jupiter Junocam Junocam has given us some of the

 most stunning pictures of the planet

 that unravels many secrets of the behemoth planet Juno was able to capture the uniquely

 rare sight of Jupiter's southern pole

 the images show an astonishing discovery the south pole is actually completely swarmed by storms and cyclones this could be seen in the image in infrared to see just how frighteningly glorious they really are it looks like something straight out of a Van Gogh painting showcasing the planet south pole as never seen before the spacecraft is actually the first ever to get a clear and precise look at the poles of the planet allowing scientists to dig deeper into its multitude of storms and cyclones in the north pole it seems as though the cyclones are more octagonal in shape while in the south they form a pentagon of sorts before Juno we could only take guesses as to what the polls would look like but now we're able to see collect imagery and infrared study the polar weather and so much more as the spacecraft orbits from pole to pole and has gotten closer to Jupiter than any spacecraft before Jupiter is known for its many satellites IO, europa, Ganymede, Calisto, Amathia, and Himalaya to name a few and not all of juno's mission's attention was solely on the planet itself but also its super icy moons the Junocam captured the perfect picture of Jupiter and its famous moons IO and Europa during its eight flybys it's almost like a family portrait all in one the image was taken while the spacecraft was drifting 27 516 kilometers above the planet's cloudy atmosphere as seen in the picture IO was visibly

 closer to Jupiter as compared to europa another stunning image shows the shadow of io falling on jupiter captured most recently on september 12 2019 during a close flyby by braving jupiter's harsh atmosphere and coming within 8 450 miles of the planet the data collected from nasa's juno spacecraft has shown that there are a multitude of massive storms and densely packed cyclones that are constantly churning on both the north and south pole of the large planet cyclones are related to a system of winds that rotate inwards and are mostly associated with rain making conditions anti-cyclones are just the opposite they force the air in a downward forceful motion towards the surface of the planet and do not produce any precipitation fellow citizen scientist Shawn Duran and Gerald Eichstadt were able to use the data from Juno to put together the image of a massive storm named NNLRS1 this beast of a storm seems to be raging along one side of the planet while several smaller cyclones can be seen in the surrounding region each of these storms is said to be big enough to engulf the whole of North America another image shows a group of cyclones seemingly swirling around in a mesmerizing dance captured in great detail by the Junocam the image was taken from an altitude of about 18,000 miles or 28,567 kilometers above the cloud cover the outer clouds and the cyclones seem to be moving anti-clockwise while the inner ones seem to be doing the exact opposite this is fascinating and will be an important point of study if we want to understand jupiter and other large gas giants like it when it comes to Jupiter you cannot

 help but mention the great red spot

 the solar system's most famous storm first observed in 1831 by amateur astronomer Samuel Heinrich Schwab the behemoth storm has almost been a signature of Jupiter and has captivated people for generations with its strong winds reaching 430 to 680 kilometers per hour and crimson-colored clouds spinning anti-clockwise the enhanced color images obtained through the juno cam clearly show the massive storm in all its vicious glory a gigantic red storm is said to be twice as wide as the earth located in the planet's southern hemisphere during its seventh flyby Juno got extremely close to Jupiter to capture the majestic anti-cyclone in action on earth a hurricane would eventually die down and break apart after hitting land but because Jupiter doesn't have a solid surface the storm has the freedom to rage on fearlessly scientists say the storm has probably been there for years and years now even long before it was first observed no one really knows how it gets its distinct red color but if you ask the great red spot what the secret to a long life is the answer might be cannibalism new studies suggest that the great red spot devours smaller storms to sustain itself the giant storm shrinks and grows every now and then but the data collected from the Juno mission is now very heavily suggesting that the storm seems to be on a shrinking trend and could possibly continue to do so in the future Jupiter's auroras are the most

 powerful in the solar system

 much like the breathtaking ones we

 see on earth but much more powerful

 the planet produces these powerful x-ray auroras typically at its poles and there are several theories on how they are produced but to date no one knows the exact cause with the measurements taken from juno scientists have speculated that the vibrations in the planet's magnetic field create ultra powerful waves which carry supercharged particles to the poles leading to the formation of these aurorae as the particles move into the magnetic field they smash into each other forming streams and curtains of glowing light putting on its very own light show overlaid images from the Junocam show the spectacular shimmering lights on both sides of Jupiter one can only imagine what a spectacular sight this could be against the black expanse of space these auroras are said to be so powerful that they could briefly power all of human civilization the original image captured in October 2018 showcases the stunning design and almost art-like appearance of the clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere it's almost like looking into a real-life painting with its surreal otherworldly beauty taken by the spacecraft's 16th flyby the cloud band seemed to swirl and create the most aesthetically pleasing visual another magnificent image of the swirling clouds on jupiter can be seen in jupiter's north tempered belt the scene is hauntingly beautiful with a myriad of shades and colors that can be seen with several white pop-up clouds as well as a raging white oval-shaped anti-cyclone at the time of this photo juno was about 4 400 miles above the cloud tops at approximately 40 degrees north as noted by nasa it is no secret that jupiter is a marvelous beauty and these images from the juno camps showcasing the deep heat streams in jupiter's atmosphere proved just that the powerful jet streams on the large planet seem to extend far longer and deeper than previously imagined data from juno has shown that these colorful ribbons and belts penetrate deep down into the planet even about 1800 miles or 3000 kilometers galileo had viewed these stripes on the planet over 400 years ago and these jovian jet streams have been a bit of a mystery in the past but with the observation from juno and

 gravity measurements taken by the spacecraft we now have an answer which would help study the depth and the core of the planet in further detail the billowy bands wrapping around the planet sure make for some stunning imagery and you cannot deny that jupiter is a true work of art nasa's juno mission has proven to be successful in collecting groundbreaking observations about the planet's atmosphere inner magnetic and gravitational fields and has since uncovered more data about the structure of the large planet than any other mission because of this valuable trove of information nasa has pushed back the end date from July 2021 to September 2025. Juno will be teaming up with the European space agency's juice Jupiter ice moon explorer to get up close and personal with the gas giant satellites Europa IO and Ganymede and we can expect some exciting new discoveries in the coming years I hope you enjoyed this article if you did please make sure to mash the like button and subscribe to our channel for more exciting space articles thanks for reading Factnominal we'll see you next time