'Dolphin' in the Jovian Clouds
This series of images from NASA's Juno spacecraft captures changing cloud formations across Jupiter's southern hemisphere. A cloud in the shape of a dolphin appears to be swimming through the cloud bands along the South South Temperate Belt.
This sequence of images was taken between 2:26 p.m. and 2:46 p.m. PDT (5:26 p.m. and 5:56 p.m. EDT) on Oct. 29, 2018, as the spacecraft performed its 16th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno's altitude ranged from about 11,400 to 31,700 miles (18,400 to 51,000 kilometers) from the planet's cloud tops, at approximately 32 to 59 degrees south latitude.
Citizen scientists Brian Swift and Seán Doran created this image using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam imager.
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.