US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Juno mission , the solar-powered robotic explorer of Jupiter, has completed its five-yea...
US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Juno mission, the solar-powered robotic explorer of Jupiter, has completed its five-year prime mission to reveal the inner workings of the solar system’s biggest planet. Since 2016, the spacecraft has flown within a few thousand kilometres of Jupiter’s colourful cloud tops every 53 days, using a carefully selected array of instruments to peer deeper into the planet than ever before.
The most recent findings from these measurements have now been published in a series of papers, revealing the three-dimensional structure of Jupiter’s weather systems – including of its famous Great Red Spot, a centuries-old storm big enough to swallow the Earth whole.
Before Juno, decades of observations had revealed the famous striped appearance of Jupiter’s atmosphere, with white bands known as zones, and red-brown bands known as belts. The bands are separated by powerful winds zipping east and west, known as the jet streams and are punctuated by gigantic vortices, such as the red spot.
But scientists had long suspected that these weather patterns were the mere tip of the iceberg, and that hidden and unforeseen phenomena might be shaping the atmosphere deep below the veil of clouds. Unlike the Earth, Jupiter’s atmosphere lacks a surface, so could be considered as a bottomless abyss.
Juno has three...
