Jupiter's swirling ‘pearl’ storm as seen by Juno spacecraft – See pic

Image credit: NASA

New Delhi: NASA has released spectacular images of Jupiter's poles taken by the Juno spacecraft during its latest flyby of the planet.

This groundbreaking image, taken by the JunoCam imager on the Juno spacecraft, highlights a swirling storm just south of one of the white oval storms on Jupiter.

As per NASA, the image was taken on March 27, 2017, at 2:12 a.m. PDT (5:12 a.m. EDT), as the Juno spacecraft performed a close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 12,400 miles (20,000 kilometers) from the planet.

Citizen scientist Jason Major enhanced the color and contrast in this image, turning the picture into a Jovian work of art. He then cropped it to focus our attention on this beautiful example of Jupiter’s spinning storms.

Juno, which arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016, successsfully completed its fifth flyby of the gas giant on March 27. During the flyby, all of Juno's science instruments and the spacecraft's JunoCam were switched on, collecting data that is now being returned to Earth.

Juno’s next flyby will take place on May 19.