APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Swimming on Jupiter
Explanation: On October 29, the Juno spacecraft once again dove near the turbulent Jovian cloud tops. Its 16th orbital closest approach or perijove passage , brought Juno within 3,500 kilometers of the Solar System's largest planetary atmosphere. These frames, recorded by JunoCam while the spacecraft cruised 20 - 50 thousand kilometers above the planet's middle southern latitudes, seem to follow a swirling cloud shaped remarkably like a dolphin. Swimming along Jupiter's darker South South Temperate Belt, this dolphin is itself planet-sized though, some thousands of kilometers across. Juno's next perijove passage is coming up on December 21.
| Date | December 14, 2018 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Image Credit: NASA , JPL-Caltech , SwRI , MSSS ; Processing & License: Brian Swift, Sean Doran |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |