(ORDO NEWS) — On November 29, 2021, NASA‘s Juno mission completed its 38th close flyby of Jupiter. Her JunoCam instrument captured a view of Jupiter’s two largest moons.
In the foreground, hurricane spiral wind patterns can be seen rotating in the northern polar region of the planet.
These powerful storm whirlwinds can reach over 50 kilometers in height and hundreds of kilometers across.
Beneath the planet’s curved horizon, Jupiter’s two moons are visible: Callisto (bottom) and Io (top).
Juno will make close flybys of Io in December 2023 and February 2024. Io is the most volcanic body in our solar system.
Eruptions on this moon leave a plume of material that simultaneously fills Jupiter’s magnetosphere and creates a torus of gas and dust around the planet.
During the flights, Juno will study Io’s volcanoes and geology, look for signs of a magma ocean, and explore how Io interacts with Jupiter’s giant magnetosphere.
Scientist Gerald Eichstedt used raw JunoCam data to create the original version of this image, and then researcher Thomas Thomopoulos further processed the image, zooming in and improving color reproduction.
At the time the image was taken, Juno was about 14,000 kilometers above Jupiter’s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 69 degrees, moving at about 198,000 kilometers per hour relative to the planet.
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