Jupiter's Bands of Color

As the orbit of NASA's Juno spacecraft evolves, the spacecraft's closest approach point to Jupiter is at a higher latitude with every pass. Near that closest approach point, the spacecraft's JunoCam can capture only a small fraction of Jupiter in a single image. From this perspective, the planet's belts and zones appear as thin strips of color on the horizon while one large circular storm dominates the image. A small orange storm is visible on the far left. Jupiter appears to have a pastel hue to the naked eye through a telescope. The color in this image has been "exaggerated," processed by citizen scientist Brian Swift to bring out subtle differences. This image was taken on Oct. 16, 2021, at 10:17 a.m. PDT (1:17 p.m. EDT) as Juno performed its 37th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 2,196 miles (3,534 kilometers) from the planet's could tops, at a latitude of 21.23 degrees. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24973

Date

2021-10-28

Photographer / author

Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing: Brian Swift CC BY

Collection

JPL

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

photograph

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