Juno: Completes 5th low pass over Jupiter + More citizen scientist images

Citizen scientist Bjorn Jonsson made this beautiful picture of a spot on Jupiter by applying image processing techniques on an photo taken by the Juno spacecraft, which is currently in orbit around the gas giant.

This enhanced color view of Jupiter’s cloud tops was processed by citizen scientist Bjorn Jonsson using data from the JunoCam instrument on NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The image highlights a massive counterclockwise rotating storm that appears as a white oval in the gas giant’s southern hemisphere. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech /SwRI /MSSS/Bjorn Jonsson Juno acquired this image on Feb. 2, 2017, at 6:13 a.m. PDT (9:13 a.m. EDT), as the spacecraft performed a close flyby of Jupiter. When the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) from the planet. [Large version]

And another Juno image from someone with the tag: Ossietzky-68:

*JUPITER’S EYES – Ossietzky-68. Three storms in row on Jupiters atmosphere resembles eyes on the planet. Mission Phase : PERIJOVE 6. 2017-05-23 03:11 UT Credit : NASA, Juno © PUBLIC DOMAIN*

Raw images from JunoCam that the public can examine and process are available at www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam

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Juno is in long elliptical orbit that brings in periodically in close to the surface of Jupiter. Last week the spacecraft completed the fifth such pass above the clouds:

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Completes Fifth Science Pass of Jupiter

Updated May 19, 2017, at 1:30 p.m. PDT: NASA’s Juno mission accomplished a close flyby of Jupiter on May 19, successfully completing its fifth science orbit.

All of Juno’s science instruments and the spacecraft’s JunoCam were operating during the flyby, collecting data that is now being returned to Earth. Juno’s next close flyby of Jupiter will occur on July 11, 2017, taking it over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

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NASA’s Juno spacecraft will make its fifth science flyby over Jupiter’s mysterious cloud tops on Thursday, May 18, at 11 p.m. PDT (Friday, May 19, 2 a.m. EDT and 6:00 UTC). At the time of perijove (defined as the point in Juno’s orbit when it is closest to the planet’s center), the spacecraft will have logged 63.5 million miles (102 million kilometers) in Jupiter’s orbit and will be about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet’s cloud tops.

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet’s cloud tops — as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.

More information on the Juno mission is available at:

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

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