Amateur astronomer shares stunning image of Jupiter’s swirls – Revista Galileu

A new image from the 43rd flyby of NASA’s Juno mission on Jupiter shows the atmosphere of the largest planet in our solar system. Posted the photo On the official NASA website It was processed by citizen Brian Swift, who enhanced the image’s colors and contrast, making the planet’s north pole swirls even more intense.

According to the US space agency, eddies may belong to powerful storms that occur more than 50 kilometers in diameter and hundreds of kilometers in diameter. Understanding how and why it occurs is critical to understanding Jupiter’s atmosphere, fluid dynamics, and the chemistry of the planet’s atmosphere.

There is interest in the diverse shapes, sizes, and colors found in the swirls of current images. That’s because colors help identify different types of tornadoes. Hurricanes rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Hurricanes do the opposite, spinning clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. They both feature very different colors and shapes.

Another piece of information important to understanding more about the gas planet is how the spacecraft was at the moment of clicking. The spacecraft dubbed Juno, like the mission, was about 25,100 km above Jupiter’s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 84 degrees.

Data on the spacecraft’s tilt at the time the image was taken is important to understanding the complex undulation of the atmosphere, which will be revealed with the help of fellow citizen scientists such as Brian Swift.

NASA Initiatives

Juno’s mission began in 2016 and has been extended until 2025. In late September this year, the spacecraft will fly over Jupiter’s moon Europa, just 355 kilometers from the icy moon, to capture more images that could help science.

The Citizen Science Project is a NASA initiative that helps volunteer members identify eddies and other weather phenomena and help classify them from images of expeditions. Inside it is a “Jovian Vortex Hunter” whose sole purpose is to identify phenomena in JunoCam images of Jupiter. No specialized training or program is required to participate: it can be done by anyone, anywhere, by entering the project website Jovian Vortex Hunter.