NASA's newest photo of Jupiter looks like an oil painting

From Country Living

NASA has released a breathtaking new image from its Juno spacecraft, capturing the dramatic jets and vortices of Jupiter in a picture resembling an oil painting.

Taken as Juno performed its 13th close flyby of the planet while the spacecraft was about 4,900 miles from the tops of Jupiter’s clouds on 23 May, the photograph shows the North North Temperate Belt, the prominent reddish-orange band left of the centre.

Sharing the photograph on Twitter, NASA wrote: “This stunning JunoCam image captures the intensity of jets and vortices in #Jupiter’s North North Temperate Belt.”

Space fans took to the social site to express their amazement, with one writing: “Like cream in a coffee!”

Another said: “So beautiful! Like a Van Gogh painting.”

NASA says the North North Temperate Belt rotates in the same direction as the planet and is predominantly cyclonic, spinning in a counter-clockwise direction. Within the belt are two grey anticyclones.

A brighter band is seen to the left of the belt with high clouds that are likely made of ammonia-ice crystals or a combination of ammonia ice and water.

Scientists think the large darker regions are places where the clouds are deeper, showing warmer thermal emission from these regions.

To the right of the bright zone and farther north on the planet, Jupiter’s striking banded structure becomes less evident and a region of individual cyclones can be seen, interspersed with smaller, darker anticyclones.

Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created the image using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager.

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