Juno Dives Deep Into a Brown Barge

The color-enhanced image on the left is from the JunoCam imager aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft and has been annotated to depict the anticyclonic (counterclockwise) rotation of one of Jupiter's intriguing atmospheric phenomena – a long, brown oval cyclonic region known as a "brown barge." The graphic on the right highlights the large-scale structure of the brown barge as seen by the spacecraft's microwave radiometer (MWR) instrument. Data for the image and the microwave radiometer results were collected during a low flyby of Jupiter. Brown barges usually lie within Jupiter's dark North Equatorial Belt, although they are sometimes found in the similarly dark South Equatorial Belt as well. They can often be difficult to detect visually because their color blends in with the dark surroundings. Brown barges usually dissipate after the entire cloud belt undergoes an upheaval and reorganizes itself. Juno is providing the first glimpses of the detailed structure within such a barge. The radiometer data was acquired from the six channels of MWR. Each MWR channel peers progressively deeper below the visible cloud tops. In fact, the MWR instrument enables Juno to see deeper into Jupiter than a

Date

2021-10-28

Photographer / author

Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing: Gerald Eichstädt CC BY

Collection

JPL

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

photograph

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