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Jupiter's Pentagon Turns Hexagon

Dec 12, 2019
In this annotated infrared image, six cyclones form a hexagonal pattern around a central cyclone at Jupiter's south pole, as detected by JIRAM aboard NASA's Juno mission.

In this annotated infrared image, six cyclones form a hexagonal pattern around a central cyclone at Jupiter's south pole. The image was generated from data collected on Nov. 4, 2019, by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA's Juno mission during its 23rd science pass of the planet. The JIRAM instrument measures heat radiated from the planet at an infrared wavelength of around 5 microns.

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

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.

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