December 23, 2024

A Rose by Any Other Name: Jupiter’s Spectacular Great Red Spot

By NASA
May 19, 2022

Image of Jupiters Great Red Spot from NASAs Juno mission, with image processing to boost the “increased” appearance. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ MSSS, Image processing by Mary J. Murphy
Jupiters already lively colors end up being even more magnificent in this striking creative interpretation of an image from NASAs Juno mission that reveals the worlds popular Great Red Spot. Resident researcher Mary J. Murphy processed an image from the spacecrafts JunoCam instrument, increasing the color saturation to develop a piece Murphy calls “The Rose.”
The Great Red Spot is a storm in Jupiters southern hemisphere with crimson-colored clouds that spin counterclockwise at wind speeds that go beyond those in any storm on Earth. Data returned by the Juno mission assisted researchers identify that the storms roots extend at least 200 miles (320 kilometers) into Jupiters environment.
The original JunoCam image was handled July 20, 2019, at 9:37 p.m. PDT (July 21, 2019, at 12:37 a.m. EDT) as the Juno spacecraft performed its 21st close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 27,000 miles (43,000 kilometers) from the planets cloud tops at a latitude of about 47 degrees South.

JunoCams raw images are available for the public to browse and process into image items at https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing.