Jaw-Dropping Close-Ups Of Jupiter And Its Giant Jet Streams As NASA Spacecraft Whizzes By

This week saw NASA spacecraft Juno, which launched in 2011 and arrived at Jupiter in 2016, conduct its 39th perijove over Jupiter. A perijove is the point during each orbit where Juno comes closest to the planet.

It passed close to Jupiter’s cloud-tops—something it does roughly every six weeks—and took some spectacular images of its jet streams with JunoCam, the spacecraft’s on-board two-megapixel camera.

The images you see here don’t come directly from NASA but from some amazing citizen scientists that painstakingly assemble, process and colorize thee raw images that are made available by NASA.

Kudos to Kevin M. Gill, Brian Swift, Andrea Luck, Vladimir Tarasov and Thomas Thomopoulos in particular, though many others are showcased on NASA’s official JunoCam website. The past few years has seen dozens of some wonderful images of Jupiter.

Juno is in a highly elliptical polar orbit, so instead of constantly returning images it only takes photos when it’s very close to the giant planet.

It spins to keep itself stable as it makes its long oval-shaped orbits.

It’s up there to study Jupiter’s composition, magnetic field, magnetosphere, to measure water present within its atmosphere and its winds.

It’s returned three terabits of science data so far. We can now add to that close passes of Jupiter’s north polar cyclones, flybys of the moons Europa and Io, and the first exploration of the faint rings encircling Jupiter.

That’s because Juno is now early on in a very exciting mission extension. Juno’s 37th close pass in November 2021 was supposed to be its last.

After completing its core five-year survey of the giant planet it was due to perform a “death dive” into the gas giant to prevent it from accidentally crashing into one of Jupiter’s moons and contaminating it.

However, with enough fuel leftover for more science NASA approved an update to Juno’s science operations until at least September 2025. Its new mission includes two flybys of Io and one of Europa:

• perijove 45: Europa flyby (September 29, 2022)
• perijove 57: Io flyby #1 (December 30, 2023)
• perijove 58: Io flyby #2 (February 3, 2024)

These will be the first close flybys of these moons since NASA’s Galileo mission in 1995-2003.

Back in June 2021 Juno was able to get very close to Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System. It’s actually larger that the planet Mercury (and Pluto) so has a quasi-planet status.

A weird and wonderful place, Ganymede may look a little like our moon but that’s where the similarity ends.

It’s actually covered in ice and may also have an underground saltwater ocean. Ganymede will be a primary target of the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) mission, which will study Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Arriving in 2031, in September 2032 will enter orbit around Ganymede.

As it does so it will become the first spacecraft to orbit a moon other than Earth’s Moon.

A year prior to JUICE’s arrival, NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will orbit Europa 32 times. Europa was recently revealed by NASA to have water vapor in its atmosphere. It was photographed by Juno back in October 2021, but only from a distance.

Though to host a saltwater ocean thought to contain twice as much water as Earth’s oceans combined, Europa is perhaps the most promising place to look for some kind of life beyond Earth.

Juno will likely take some images of Europe next month, though only from a relatively far distance.

Europa Clipper and JUICE will build on the stunning success of Juno, which has achieved a lot of science while at Jupiter. It’s discovered how Jupiter’s atmosphere works and revealed the complexity and asymmetry of its magnetic field.

Juno also recently revealed that Jupiter’s “Great Red Spot” extends over 200 miles/350 kilometers. The Solar System’s largest storm lies 22º south of Jupiter’s equator and has been raging since at least the year 1830. Its diameter makes it almost twice the size of the Earth.

During this first phase of the mission extension Juno is also studying Jupiter’s “Great Blue Spot,” an isolated patch of intense magnetic field near the planet’s equator.

In October 2021 new findings from Juno provided the first 3D look at how the giant planet’s “beautiful and violent atmosphere” operates underneath the top layers of clouds.

However, Juno is not the first NASA spacecraft to photograph Jupiter. In fact, a total of eight have done so before including Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, the Galileo Orbiter and Galileo Probe, Ulysses and Cassini.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.