The Great Red Spot Plunge (animation)
Animation
Click on the image for animation
This animation takes the viewer on a simulated flight into, and then out of, Jupiter's upper atmosphere at the location of the Great Red Spot.
The perspective begins about 2,000 miles (3,000 kilometers) above the cloud tops of the planet's southern hemisphere. The bar at far left indicates altitude during the quick descent; a second gauge next to that depicts the dramatic increase in temperature that occurs as the perspective dives deeper down. The clouds turn crimson as the perspective passes through the Great Red Spot. Finally, the view ascends out of the spot.
This video was created by combining an image from the JunoCam imager on NASA's Juno spacecraft with a computer-generated animation.
JunoCam's raw images are available at www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam for the public to peruse and process into image products.
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.