Tracking Clouds on Jupiter

The motion of small clouds on Jupiter is used to determine wind direction (indicated with arrows) in this work by citizen scientists John Rogers and Gerald Eichstädt. Using multiple images to track the motion of clouds was enabled by the Juno spacecraft's slow departure from Jupiter's southern hemisphere on perijove pass 28, on July 25, 2020. Zonal winds are a well-known phenomenon on Jupiter, correlating with its familiar belts and zones. Within a latitudinal band there can be regional circulation, such as the South Temperate Belt (STB) Spectre shown in this image. The STB Spectre is cyclonic (winds rotating in clockwise direction), spread out in latitude but confined in longitude.

This work is representative of an ongoing and fruitful collaboration of amateur astronomers with the Juno project. John Rogers analyzed cloud movement in three JunoCam images processed by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt to identify winds. Latitudinal belts and zones ( labeled with the conventions used by the amateur astronomy community and professional observers), are: SEB(S): South Equatorial Belt (south); STropZ: South Tropical Zone; STBn jet: South Temperate Belt (north) jet; STZ: South Temperate Zone; and SSTB: South South Temperate Belt.

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 NASA citizen science can be found at https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and https://www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.

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