A never-before-seen view of Jupiter's south pole! (See pic)

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

New Delhi: NASA's Juno spacecraft has captured and delivered spectacular images of Jupiter planet.

As per NASA, the JunoCam instrument acquired a never-before-seen view on Jupiter's south pole on August 27, 2016, when the spacecraft was about 58,700 miles (94,500 kilometers) above the polar region. At this point, the spacecraft was about an hour past its closest approach, and fine detail in the south polar region is clearly resolved.

Unlike the equatorial region's familiar structure of belts and zones, the poles are mottled by clockwise and counterclockwise rotating storms of various sizes, similar to giant versions of terrestrial hurricanes.

NASA says the south pole has never been seen from this viewpoint, although the Cassini spacecraft was able to observe most of the polar region at highly oblique angles as it flew past Jupiter on its way to Saturn in 2000.

One of the most notable findings of these first-ever pictures of Jupiter’s north and south poles is something that the JunoCam imager did not see, adds NASA.

The Juno spacecraft launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida and arrived at the giant planet Jupiter on July 4, 2016.