Skip to main content

NASA releases first images of Jupiter’s bizarre geometric storms

Jupiter is a big, complex, chaotic planet. It has long been known as the most dominant feature in our sun’s orbit, but it wasn’t until last May that the planet’s internal features began to be revealed. During a few close passes, NASA’s $1.1 billion Juno spacecraft collected data on the gas giant that revealed cyclones the size of Earth and a surprisingly strong magnetic field.

Now, data collected by Juno have uncovered more never-before-seen features on its north and south poles. In a study published this week in the journal Nature, a team of scientists report bizarre geometric storms surrounding a single massive cyclone on each of the planet’s poles. The storms measure seven thousands miles across and reach wind speeds nearing 220 miles per hour, which would classify them as Category 5 hurricane here on Earth.

On July 4, 2016, Juno rendezvoused with Jupiter to perform a series of close passes that would bring the spacecraft just a couple thousands miles above the gas giant’s top cloud layer. Using its sophisticated instruments, Juno began to peer beneath the planet’s clouds for the first time, snapping photos and measuring Jupiter’s infrared, microwave, ultraviolet, gravity, and magnetic features.

Among the many mysteries Juno scientists sought to uncover were Jupiter’s poles, previously hidden from our telescopes due to the planet’s nonexistent tilt. When Juno finally beamed back images of the north pole, scientists were shocked to find eight cyclones circling a single storm in the middle. Later, the south pole presented a similar arrangement with five outer storms.

Alberto Adriani, a co-investigator for Juno’s Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) and lead author of the paper, explained that the storms are likely the result of Jupiter’s heat and rotation speed.

“The high rotation of the planet — about 10 hours for a complete turn around its axis — and the heat coming from the lower levels of the atmosphere certainly have a great impact to the formation of the cyclonic pattern we have observed over the Jupiter’s poles,” he told Digital Trends.

As with many space discoveries, it’s not always clear how or why the findings are relevant to us on Earth. Sure, Jupiter’s strange storms are cool, but why does it matter?

“Space research has a triple value,” Adriani said. There’s the knowledge itself, the search for which “pushes our minds to try to understand what we don’t know.” Then there are the technological advances that enable such a discovery in the first place, some of which can be used to study things like space weather, which have an immediate impact on Earth.

“Last but not least, economically speaking every euro [or dollar] invested in research comes back to the society,” Adriani, and that return on investment is often multiplied by many factors.

Editors' Recommendations

Dyllan Furness
Dyllan Furness is a freelance writer from Florida. He covers strange science and emerging tech for Digital Trends, focusing…
Pollution-tracking NASA satellite shares its first images of air quality
Artist's illustration of TEMPO.

A new NASA satellite designed to monitor pollution from space has shared its first images, showing how it will be able to track air pollution across North America. The TEMPO, or Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution, instrument was launched earlier this year in April and has been observing the Earth from its orbit 22,000 miles above the equator.

Artist's illustration of TEMPO. NASA

Read more
Gorgeous images of Jupiter’s cloud tops snapped by Juno spacecraft
Bands of high-altitude haze forming above cyclones in an area of Jupiter known at Jet N7.

NASA's Juno mission has become a favorite among space fans for its JunoCam instrument which often captures gorgeous images of the beauty of the planet Jupiter and its moons. Earlier this year the spacecraft made its 49th close flyby of the planet, and NASA recently released some more stunning images taken as it whizzed by the planet's cloud tops.

The first image was taken as the spacecraft made its close flyby on March 1, showing the complex structures in the cloud tops of the planet's atmosphere. NASA explains that the image shows "bands of high-altitude haze forming above cyclones in an area known as Jet N7." Cyclones are a common feature on Jupiter, particularly near the poles, and a formed due to differences in atmospheric pressure which cause parts of the atmosphere to rotate. Here you can see a number of cyclones, which rotate clockwise, but it is also common to observe anticyclones, which rotate counterclockwise.

Read more
NASA’s first crewed test flight of Starliner spacecraft delayed
Engineers working on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

NASA’s quest to have a second U.S.-operated spacecraft for ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) has suffered another blow.

The expected July 21 launch of the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule has been called off following the recent discovery of two safety issues, the aerospace giant said on Thursday.

Read more