Jupiter Marble from Juno
Explanation:
What does Jupiter look like up close?
Most images of
Jupiter are taken
from far away, either from
Earth or from a great enough distance that nearly
half the planet is visible.
This shot, though, was composed from images taken relatively close in, where less than half of the planet was visible.
From here,
Jupiter still appears
spherical but
perspective distortion now makes it look more like a
marble.
Visible on
Jupiter's cloud tops
are a prominent dark
horizontal belt containing a
white oval cloud,
and a white zone cloud, both of which circle the planet.
The
Great Red Spot looms on the upper right.
The
featured image was taken by the robotic Juno spacecraft in February during its
17th close pass of our Solar System's largest planet.
Juno's mission, now extended into 2021, is to study Jupiter in new ways.
Juno's data has already
enabled discoveries that include
Jupiter's magnetic field being surprisingly lumpy, and that some of
Jupiter's
cloud systems
run about 3,000 kilometers into the planet.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
