Due to the lapse in federal government funding, NASA is not updating this website.

Suggested Searches

1 Min Read

Jupiter’s Polar Vortices Over Five Years

This annotated composite image depicts the movement of the polar and circumpolar cyclones of Jupiter's south pole between 2016 and 2021 as seen by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft.
PIA24967
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM
Image Addition Date:
Target:
Is a satellite of:
Mission(s):
Spacecraft(s):
Instrument(s):

Description

This annotated composite image depicts the movement of the polar and circumpolar cyclones of Jupiter's south pole between 2016 (left) and 2021 (right) as seen by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft. In both images, five cyclones are arranged as a pentagon, with a sixth cyclone in the center (south pole).

JIRAM "sees" in infrared light not visible to the human eye. It was designed to capture the infrared light emerging from deep inside Jupiter, probing the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below Jupiter's cloud tops.

More information about Juno is at https://www.nasa.gov/juno and https://missionjuno.swri.edu.