JunoCam Captures a Northern Jet on Jupiter

This image of a "jet" in Jupiter's atmosphere was taken by the JunoCam public engagement camera aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft on May 23, 2022.

Jupiter's atmosphere is organized into belts and zones, separated by jets, which are associated with turbulence along belt-zone boundaries, leading to chaotic regions of multicolored clouds. In this image, the color in these two regions has been enhanced to bring out detail and show the different layers of cloud decks.

Juno's orbit around Jupiter changes every time the spacecraft passes the giant planet, with the point of closest approach – the perijove, or "PJ" – moving steadily northward. As the perijove changes, the resolution of images taken in the northern hemisphere steadily increases. This image of Jet N3 was acquired on PJ42, Juno's 42nd pass by Jupiter, at 41.6 degrees north from an altitude of 2,361 miles (3,800 kilometers). It shows features as small as 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) across.

Citizen scientist Sergio Díaz processed the image to enhance the color and contrast.

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.