NASA sent a spacecraft to Jupiter in 2011 to study our Solar System’s largest planet. Reaching the gas giant planet after a long journey of five years, Juno has since sent countless data and images that teach a lot about Jupiter.
Juno, who is still on duty, has transmitted new data and images in the past weeks. Björn Jónsson, a space exploration scientist, edited an incoming image to create two new images of Jupiter.
This is what Jupiter would look like if we could get as close to Juno and look at it;
Jónsson made some edits to an image that Juno captured on July 5, revealing the images above.
- Left of the images is the version that a human would see if they were as close to Juno as Juno and looked at it from that point of view. The image in question was taken when Juno was 5,300 km from Jupiter.
- In the image on the right, Jónsson made some contrast and saturation adjustments to the image. These arrangements were made according to the data obtained about Jüptier. In the image, Jónsson highlighted Jupiter’s atmospheric structure.
The color differences in the second image show us the changes in the chemical composition of different parts of Jupiter’s atmosphere. It also reveals the nature of powerful storms forming in the planet’s clouds.
Juno’s mission was originally scheduled to end in 2021, but the spacecraft continues to send us news from Jupiter. Images and data from Juno are shared publicly on a website. If you wish, you can reach the most up-to-date images by clicking here!