Juno Views a Storm on the Southern Edge of Jupiter’s Northern Polar Region

Juno Spacecraft Views a Storm on Jupiter

The image shows an anticyclonic storm on Jupiter named North North Temperate Little Red Spot 1 (NN-LRS-1), which has been tracked since at least 1993 and is the third largest anticyclonic oval on the planet. The storm has a pale reddish core and its color varies between red and off-white. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft viewed a storm at the southern edge of Jupiter’s northern polar region as it performed its seventh close flyby of Jupiter.

This storm is a long-lived anticyclonic oval named North North Temperate Little Red Spot 1 (NN-LRS-1); it has been tracked at least since 1993, and may be older still. An anticyclone is a weather phenomenon where winds around the storm flow in the direction opposite to that of the flow around a region of low pressure. It is the third largest anticyclonic oval on the planet, typically around 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) long. The color varies between red and off-white (as it is now), but this JunoCam image shows that it still has a pale reddish core within the radius of maximum wind speeds.

Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager. The image has been rotated so that the top of the image is actually the equatorial regions while the bottom of the image is of the northern polar regions of the planet.

The image was taken on July 10, 2017 at 6:42 p.m. PDT (9:42 p.m. EDT), as the Juno spacecraft performed its seventh close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 7,111 miles (11,444 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of 44.5 degrees.

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

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