NASA's $1 billion Jupiter probe just sent back stunning new photos of the gas giant
NASA will eventually destroy the $1 billion robot. That way, it can't accidentally crash into Jupiter's icy moon Europa and contaminate an ocean there that may harbor alien life.
The spacecraft will continue to document Jupiter for as long as NASA can keep it going. But not forever.
Artist and space enthusiast Seán Doran often animates Juno's images into videos that provide a sense of what it's like to fly past Jupiter's cloud tops. This one's from the eighth flyby.
Source: Sean Doran/Flickr
In this older view of Jupiter from the eighth perijove, two cloud bands battle for dominance — one of which contains a swirling storm many times larger than a hurricane on Earth.
Many cloud bands have features called chevrons. These atmospheric disturbances blow at several hundreds of miles per hour and sometimes zig-zag through the band.
Other times, shining white flecks of clouds fill up most of a band.
The mixture sometimes creates features that look like faces (as seen on the left in this image).
There are also traces of molecules like ammonia, methane, sulfur, and water.
The planet's atmosphere is a turbulent mess of hydrogen and helium gases.
Some of the tempests are large enough to swallow planet Earth, or a good chunk of it.
Others dazzle with their detail of Jupiter's cloud bands and storms.
Many take on an artistic quality.
Enthusiasts take the drab, mostly gray image data and process it all into true-to-life color photos.
Juno pulls off this maneuver, called a perijove, about every 53 days. Then researchers upload the raw data set to the mission's website.
Juno was supposed to speed up and fly by the gas giant planet every two weeks, but a sticky engine valve prevented that maneuver.
Then Juno flew back out into deep space, passing over Jupiter's south pole on its exit. Clouds at the top and bottom of the planet constantly change due to churning storms.
The spacecraft then swept within a few thousand miles of the gas giant's cloud tops, capturing stunning high-resolution views of its cloud tops.
At its closest approach to Jupiter during each flyby, the robot briefly becomes the fastest human-made object in the solar system, reaching speeds of around 130,000 miles per hour.
In the most recent flyby, as with the previous eight, Juno's flyby started over Jupiter's north pole.
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