NASA probe captures painting-like cloudscape over Jupiter in swoop over planet
At first glance, it looks like a strange oil painting, or a lava lamp, but it’s actually a close-up look at the clouds over the largest planet in our solar system – Jupiter.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured a mesmerising image of the swirling clouds of the gas giant, taken from just 8,000 miles up.
It was taken on December 16 by the tiny armoured probe, which is flying closer to the giant planet than any previous spacecraft.
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The Juno probe took five years to make the 1.7 billion mile journey to the solar system’s largest planet – and is now gathering data on the mysterious gas giant.
Juno is studying the planet’s composition, gravity, magnetic field, and the source of its raging 384mph winds.
Jupiter completely fills the image, with only a hint of the terminator (where daylight fades to night) in the upper right corner, and no visible limb (the curved edge of the planet).
The spatial scale in this image is 5.8 miles/pixel.
Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager.
