Science and Exploration

Jupiter’s Stunning Southern Hemisphere

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
November 14, 2017
Filed under ,
Jupiter’s Stunning Southern Hemisphere
Jupiter's Southern Hemisphere
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/ Seán Doran

See Jupiter’s southern hemisphere in beautiful detail in this new image taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.

The color-enhanced view captures one of the white ovals in the “String of Pearls,” one of eight massive rotating storms at 40 degrees south latitude on the gas giant planet.

The image was taken on Oct. 24, 2017 at 11:11 a.m. PDT (2:11 p.m. EDT), as Juno performed its ninth close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 20,577 miles (33,115 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of minus 52.96 degrees. The spatial scale in this image is 13.86 miles/pixel (22.3 kilometers/pixel).

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/ Seán Doran

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SpaceRef co-founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.