NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Beams Back The Sharpest Images Of Jupiter—Ever

NASA's Juno probe performed its 43rd close flyby of Jupiter on July 5, 2022, analyzing the intricate hues and structure of the giant planet's clouds.

These two photos were generated by citizen scientist Björn Jónsson using raw data from the JunoCam instrument aboard the spacecraft. When the raw photograph was acquired, Juno was roughly 3,300 miles (5,300 kilometres) above Jupiter's cloud tops at a latitude of about 50 degrees. The north is rising. At the moment, the spacecraft was flying at around 130,000 mph (209,000 kilometres per hour) relative to the earth.

The first image (on the left) was altered to depict the colours seen by the human eye from Juno's vantage point. Jónsson digitally altered the second image (right) to boost colour saturation and contrast, sharpen small-scale features, and minimise compression artefacts and noise that are frequent in raw photographs. This vividly exposes some of Jupiter's most remarkable features, including colour variation due by changes in chemical composition, the three-dimensional character of Jupiter's swirling vortices, and the little, bright "pop-up" clouds that occur in the upper atmosphere.

The raw photos from JunoCam are available for viewing and processing into image products at https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing. NASA citizen science information can be found at https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and https://www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.