Juno: Citizen scientists turn Jupiter’s stormy clouds into dramatic artworks

The Juno spacecraft made its latest close flyby pass above the clouds of Jupiter:  Juno Spacecraft Completes Fifth Jupiter Flyby | Mission Juno

At the time of closest approach (called perijove), Juno will be about 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above the planet’s cloud tops, traveling at a speed of about 129,000 miles per hour (57.8 kilometers per second) relative to the gas-giant planet. All of Juno’s eight science instruments will be on and collecting data during the flyby.

Some of the most dramatic Juno images of the solar system’s largest planet have come from private individuals who have downloaded raw images from the JunoCam and applied their own image processing recipies. The Juno mission in fact invites public to participate in such activities: JunoCam : Processing | Mission Juno 

… do your own image processing, and we encourage you to upload your creations for us to enjoy and share.  The types of image processing we’d love to see range from simply cropping an image to highlighting a particular atmospheric feature, as well as adding your own color enhancements, creating collages and adding advanced color reconstruction.

Here is an example: Dark Spot and Jovian ‘Galaxy’ | NASA

Full size version.

This enhanced-color image of a mysterious dark spot on Jupiter seems to reveal a Jovian “galaxy” of swirling storms.

Juno acquired this JunoCam image on Feb. 2, 2017, at 5:13 a.m. PDT (8:13 a.m. EDT), at an altitude of 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) above the giant planet’s cloud tops. This publicly selected target was simply titled “Dark Spot.” In ground-based images it was difficult to tell that it is a dark storm.

Citizen scientist Roman Tkachenko enhanced the color to bring out the rich detail in the storm and surrounding clouds.  Just south of the dark storm is a bright, oval-shaped storm with high, bright, white clouds, reminiscent of a swirling galaxy. As a final touch, he rotated the image 90 degrees, turning the picture into a work of art.

JunoCam’s raw images are available at www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam for the public to peruse and process into image products.

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

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko

Here is another example: Jupiter’s Raging Storms by Rachel Richards

Jupiter’s Raging Storms by Rachel Richards
2017-03-16 12:14 UT
Credit : Rachel Richards © PUBLIC DOMAIN
Submitted By : DocRocket
Mission Phase : PERIJOVE 3
Processed image of juno’s
LATITUDE COVERAGE of Jupiter // Mission Phase : PERIJOVE 3

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