Juno Jupiter Mission Produces Intense Images Released by NASA
- Details
- Category: Earth, Air, Space Science
- Published on Saturday, 14 April 2018 19:14
- Written by Janet Walker
NASA, The National Aeronautics and Space Agency, recently released images of an animated low-flyer over of Jupiter's North Pole catching a major cyclones circled by eight smaller cyclones, producing an intense animated version of the actual weather patterns on Jupiter.
"An infrared view of Jupiter's North Pole. The movie utilizes imagery derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno mission. The images were obtained during Juno's fourth pass over Jupiter. Infrared cameras are used to sense the temperature of Jupiter's atmosphere and provide insight into how the powerful cyclones at Jupiter's poles work," according to a NASA statement.
The animated imagery, with a look of lava, reveals the intensity of wind patterns, detecting movement and higher wind speeds.
Juno Enters Jupiter's Atmosphere – No, It’s Not MARS
Juno, the unmanned orbital spacecraft, which has been photographing the giant gas planet since completing its first flyby July 17, 2017, has continued to send back stunning imagery of the largest planet in the solar system.
NASA Scientists have learned Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun, has an heavy cloud base of up to 70 kilometers or 45 miles.
Probing the north pole they discovered the area is dominated by a central cyclone surrounded by eight circumpolar cyclones with diameters ranging from 2,500 to 2,900 miles (4,000 to 4,600 kilometers).
Juno, NASA’s Orbital Spacecraft, Completes Jupiter Flyby
"Before Juno, we could only guess what Jupiter's poles would look like," said Alberto Adriani, Juno co-investigator from the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome. "Now, with Juno flying over the poles at a close distance it permits the collection of infrared imagery on Jupiter's polar weather patterns and its massive cyclones in unprecedented spatial resolution," NASA reported.
The Juno mission is more successful than could have been imagined provided more than weather data, Juno's intense Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument attached to the spacecraft sends back to NASA highly distinguishable images.
During the past year, Juno has orbited the Jupiter eight times and with each pass provided more in depth information on the theories of magnetic field at the surface.
Jack Connerney of the Space Research Corporation, Annapolis Maryland, "presented the first detailed view of the dynamo, or engine, powering the magnetic field of Jupiter. He and his colleagues the produced new magnetic field model from measurements made during eight orbits of Jupiter. From those, they derived maps of the magnetic field at the surface and in the region below the surface where the dynamo is thought to originate. Because Jupiter is a gas giant, "surface" is defined as one Jupiter radius, which is about 44,400 miles (71,450 kilometers)," NASA reported.
The Juno Mission is continuing and expected with the newer modules and sending back the intense imagery should provide a new era in study of Jupiter.
Source: NASA
