NASA's Juno reveals Jupiter's south pole and its swirling atmosphere in enhanced colour!

Image courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko

New Delhi: After its launch in August 2011, NASA's space probe Juno entered Jupiter's polar orbit in July 2016, thus commencing its 20-month investigation of the planet.

Juno has, ever since, been beaming back some amazing data on the planet as well as giving space enthusiasts spectacular visual treats from time to time.

Now, making use of data provided by the JunoCam imager on Juno, citizen scientist Roman Tkachenko has created an enhanced-color image of Jupiter’s south pole and its swirling atmosphere.

The image was acquired by Juno while it was looking directly at the Jovian south pole, on February 2, 2017, at 6:06 am PST (9:06 am EST) from an altitude of about 63,400 miles (102,100 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops. The image also shows cyclones swirling around the south pole, and white oval storms can be seen near the limb – the apparent edge of the planet.