Jupiter's Swirling Cloud Formations | Juno Mission | NASA/JPL

Jupiter's Swirling Cloud Formations | Juno Mission | NASA/JPL

NASA’s Juno spacecraft observed the complex colors and structure of Jupiter’s clouds, including this striking view of vortices—hurricane-like spiral wind patterns. These powerful storms can be over 30 miles (50 kilometers) in height and hundreds of miles across. Figuring out how they form is key to understanding Jupiter's atmosphere, as well as the fluid dynamics and cloud chemistry that create the planet's other atmospheric features. Scientists are particularly interested in the vortices' varying shapes, sizes, and colors. For example, cyclones, which spin counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern, and anti-cyclones, which rotate clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere, exhibit very different colors and shapes.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Juno mission for NASA. The mission's principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The mission is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

Learn more about the Juno mission at: www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.org

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

Release Date: October 7, 2022

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