Here is a collection of a series of stunning images of the planet Jupiter captured by NASA's Juno mission during its flyby around Jupiter.
The stunning footage captured by NASA’s Juno Spacecraft was released as the mission reached its halfway point.
The incredible photographs show massive whirlpools of clods soaring above the planet as the probe completed is 16th pass around the gas giant.
The spacecraft is currently in a highly-elliptical, 53-day orbit around the gas giant, and it offers us an unprecedented view of Jupiter’s fascinating atmospheric phenomena.
While Juno orbits the planet and snaps a plethora of mind-bending images, the spacecraft’s instruments are busy peeking deep beneath the planet’s cloud cover, studying not only the planet’s auroras but helping us understand how Jupiter came into existence, what it looks like from inside, and what the gas Giants atmosphere and magnetosphere are like.
Jack Connerney, Juno deputy principal investigator from the Space Research Corporation in Annapolis, Maryland, recently spoke about the Juno mission and the latest scientific data.
“With our 16th science flyby, we will have complete global coverage of Jupiter, albeit at coarse resolution, with polar passes separated by 22.5 degrees of longitude,” Connerney explained.
“Over the second half of our prime mission — science flybys 17 through 32 — we will split the difference, flying exactly halfway between each previous orbit. This will provide coverage of the planet every 11.25 degrees of longitude, providing a more detailed picture of what makes the whole of Jupiter tick,” Connerney added.
Juno entered into orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016, after successfully traveling 1.8 billion miles from Earth.
During its time orbiting Jupiter, the Juno spacecraft has helped scientists rethink everything they knew about the gas giant.
Scott Bolton, the principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, explained: “We have already rewritten the textbooks on how Jupiter’s atmosphere works and on the complexity and asymmetry of its magnetic field.”
“The second half should provide the detail that we can use to refine our understanding of the depth of Jupiter’s zonal winds, the generation of its magnetic field, and the structure and evolution of its interior,” Bolton added.
You can find more stunning images captured by the Juno mission by visiting this link.
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