Skip to main content

Juno images reveal that Jupiter’s poles are unlike anything NASA imagined

Dipping as close as 2,500 miles above Jupiter’s clouds, NASA’s Juno spacecraft snapped the first images of the gas giant’s north pole, and some of its best images yet, during a six-hour fly-by on August 27. It took a day and a half for the agency to download the six megabytes of data transmitted back to Earth. It will take more time still to analyze all the information but, over the weekend, the agency released the first set of images.

“First glimpse of Jupiter’s north pole, and it looks like nothing we have seen or imagined before,” Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. “It’s bluer in color up there than other parts of the planet, and there are a lot of storms. There is no sign of the latitudinal bands or zone and belts that we are used to — this image is hardly recognizable as Jupiter. We’re seeing signs that the clouds have shadows, possibly indicating that the clouds are at a higher altitude than other features.”

Recommended Videos

Related: Juno shares incredible time lapse of Jupiter’s moons during descent into orbit

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Among the remarkable discoveries made by the onboard camera, JunoCam, was a difference between Saturn’s north pole and Jupiter’s. Where Saturn’s pole is accented by a hexagonal formation, Jupiter’s is not.

“The largest planet in our solar system is truly unique,” Bolton said.

JunoCam was just one of the spacecraft’s eight instruments activated during the fly-by. The Jovian Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) caught glimpses of the Jupiter’s poles in infrared.

Jupiter's Glow in Infrared Light

And the Radio/Plasma Wave Experiment (Waves) recorded the eerie sounds that rose from the planet’s auroras.

Juno Listens to Jupiter's Auroras

“Jupiter is talking to us in a way only gas-giant worlds can,” said Bill Kurth, co-investigator for the Waves instrument from the University of Iowa, Iowa City. “Waves detected the signature emissions of the energetic particles that generate the massive auroras which encircle Jupiter’s north pole. These emissions are the strongest in the solar system. Now we are going to try to figure out where the electrons come from that are generating them.”

Juno has 35 more fly-bys scheduled for the next 20 months, before the probe dives to its demise in Jupiter’s clouds.

Dyllan Furness
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Dyllan Furness is a freelance writer from Florida. He covers strange science and emerging tech for Digital Trends, focusing…
NASA’s Juno spacecraft to pass within 1,000 miles of volcanic moon Io
This image revealing the north polar region of the Jovian moon Io was taken on October 15 by NASA’s Juno. Three of the mountain peaks visible in the upper part of image, near the day-night dividing line, were observed here for the first time by the spacecraft’s JunoCam.

NASA's Juno spacecraft, currently in orbit around Jupiter, will soon be making a close flyby of one of the planet's most dramatic moons, Io. On Saturday, December 30, Juno will come within 1,000 miles of Io, making it the closest spacecraft to that moon in the last 20 years.

Io is an intriguing place because it shows signs of significant volcanic activity, making it the most geologically active body in the solar system. It hosts over 400 active volcanoes, which periodically erupt due to hot magma inside the moon created by friction caused by the gravitational pull between Jupiter and its other large moons.

Read more
Hubble captures a stunning ultraviolet image of Jupiter
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals an ultraviolet view of Jupiter.

You can now see Jupiter in a whole new way, thanks to a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope. Showing the planet in the ultraviolet wavelength, the image highlights the planet's Great Red Spot -- an enormous storm larger than the width of the entire Earth that has been raging for hundreds of years.

The image was released in celebration of Jupiter reaching opposition, meaning it is directly opposite the sun as viewed from the Earth. That means that if you are a keen stargazer, now is a great time to go and look for Jupiter in the night sky as it will look its biggest and brightest.

Read more
NASA’s Lucy phones home after ‘Dinky’ flyby
Artist’s illustration of the Lucy concept.

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is powering on toward Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids after making a successful flyby of another asteroid called Dinkinesh, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Lucy sent a signal to the mission’s operations team on Monday, confirming its brief rendezvous with the 2,500-foot-wide Dinkinesh.

Read more