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Layered Swirls

Dec. 12, 2019
NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this image of layers of clouds swirling in Jupiter's atmosphere.

Layers of clouds swirl in Jupiter's atmosphere, captured in this image from Juno's JunoCam imager. Sharp boundaries of storms cast thin shadows on the clouds beneath the storms at about 50 degrees north. The smallest, brightest clouds, dubbed "pop-up" storms, are likely composed of bright crystals of ammonia.

Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created this cropped and enhanced color version of the image taken by JunoCam on Sept. 12, 2019 at 03:41. The Juno spacecraft was just 4,900 miles (7,900 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops, and details as small as 3 miles (5 kilometers) across can be resolved in the image.

JunoCam's raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at
https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing.

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

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