Time changes in Storm Clouds in Jupiter's Atmosphere

These two images of Jupiter's atmosphere were taken in the near-infrared portion of the spectrum with the 756 nanometer (nm) filter of the Solid State Imaging (CCD) system aboard NASA's Galileo spacecraft on June 26, 1996.

The bright white spot in the center of each image is to the northwest of Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS). The right image was taken approximately 9 hours later than the left image; the time separation of these two images shows the evolution of the clouds during one Jovian rotation period. Sequences obtained by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in 1979 show similar spots to the west of the GRS, which grew rapidly to diameters of 2000 kilometers within one day.

North is at the top of these images which are centered at approximately 13 South latitude and 335 West longitude. In the left image, each picture element (pixel) subtends a square of about 36 kilometers on a side, and the spacecraft was at a range of more than 1.7 million kilometers from Jupiter. In the right image, each pixel subtends a square of about 30 kilometers on a side, and the spacecraft was at a range of more than 1.4 million kilometers from Jupiter.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.

This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.