Spectacular Juno Image of Jupiter’s Northern Polar Belt Region

Juno Views Jupiter’s Northern Polar Belt Region

Image of Jupiter’s northern polar belt region. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Björn Jónsson

This spectacular new image taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft show’s Jupiter’s northern polar belt region.

This color-enhanced image was taken on December 16, 2017 at 9:47 a.m. PST (12:47 p.m. EST), as Juno performed its tenth close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 5,600 miles (8,787 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of 38.4 degrees north.

Citizen scientist Björn Jónsson processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager. This image has been processed from the raw JunoCam framelets by removing the effects of global illumination. Jónsson then increased the contrast and color and sharpened smallscale features. The image has also been cropped.

While at first glance the view may appear to be in Jupiter’s south, the raw source images were obtained when Juno was above the planet’s northern hemisphere looking south, potentially causing a sense of disorientation to the viewer. The geometry of the scene can be explored using the time of the image and the Juno mission module of NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System.

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

2 Comments on "Spectacular Juno Image of Jupiter’s Northern Polar Belt Region"

  1. How in this world can you show images of Junk when you don’t show an accurate picture of our Earth, remember NASA says it’s actually pear shaped. And no decent pictures of our own Antarctica and North Poles? I’m just at a total loss, NASA thinks were all idiots or too stupid to handle the truth. Enough “Composite images” were all grown up now, we Can handle the truth.

  2. How in this world can you show images of Juno when you don’t show an accurate picture of our Earth, remember NASA says it’s actually pear shaped. And no decent pictures of our own Antarctica and North Poles? I’m just at a total loss, NASA thinks were all idiots or too stupid to handle the truth. Enough “Composite images” were all grown up now, we Can handle the truth.

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