A Sixth Cyclone Has Joined the Configuration of Circumpolar Cyclones at Jupiter's South Pole

A series of JunoCam images from Juno's 23rd close pass by Jupiter (Perijove 23) on Nov. 3, 2019 has revealed a sixth circumpolar cyclone in the cluster around Jupiter's south pole. A single cyclone is located close to the geographic south pole, and until now it has been surrounded by five cyclones. The five cyclones were discovered in images acquired early in the Juno mission, but their positioning was never a perfect pentagon. There was always a gap between cyclones 1 and 2 that varied in extent. Now number six has drifted into that gap, forming a nearly-perfect pentagon. The new cyclone had been observed previously nearby.

Close examination at high resolution (figure 1) reveals cyclonic motion in the dark center. The dark core is 870 miles (1,400 kilometers across), with the bright outer ring at 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) in diameter.

Will it stay or drift out again? Scientists are looking forward to seeing images from the next close pass!

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.