New Photos of Jupiter taken by the Juno Spacecraft

quote:

---

A probe the size of a basketball court has taken unprecedented new images of Jupiter. NASA's $1 billion Juno spacecraft, launched in August 2011, took five years to reach and settle into orbit around the gas giant, which is more than 415 million miles from Earth. The probe has so far photographed Jupiter's poles for the first time, detected bizarre cloud formations, recorded mysterious auroras, and scanned deep into the planet's thick cloud tops. Juno repeatedly swings by Jupiter in a wide arc to minimize time inside the planet's intense radiation belts, which can damage sensitive electronics. Juno completed the fifth such maneuver on March 27, recording a fresh batch of images and streaming that raw data back to Earth — and now amateur astronomers are beginning to turn the gray, unprocessed photos into brilliant full-color images.

---

quote:

---

This new image, processed by amateur astronomer Roman Tkachenko, shows Jupiter's north pole in all its stormy glory.

---

quote:

---

This shot, put together by Gervasio Robles, merges three Juno flyby images to show Jupiter's elusive south pole in full view.

---