April 26, 2018 Page 5
NASA’S Juno Mission Provides Infrared Tour of Jupiter’s North Pole
Based on a Press Release from
JPL/NASA, Provided by Bob Eklund
Scientists working on NASA’s Juno
mission to Jupiter shared a 3-D infrared
movie depicting densely packed cyclones
and anticyclones that permeate the planet’s
polar regions; and the first detailed view of
a dynamo, or engine, powering the magnetic
field for any planet beyond Earth.
Juno mission scientists have taken data
collected by the spacecraft’s Jovian InfraRed
Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument and
generated the 3-D fly-around of the Jovian
world’s north pole. Imaging in the infrared
part of the spectrum, JIRAM captures light
emerging from deep inside Jupiter equally
well, night or day. The instrument probes
the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles
below Jupiter’s cloud tops. The imagery will
help the team understand the forces at work
in the animation -- a north pole dominated
by a central cyclone surrounded by eight
circumpolar cyclones with diameters ranging
from 2,500 to 2,900 miles.
“Before Juno, we could only guess what
Jupiter’s poles would look like,” said Alberto
Adriani, Juno co-investigator from the Institute
for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome.
“Now, with Juno flying over the poles at a
close distance, it permits the collection of
infrared imagery on Jupiter’s polar weather
patterns and its massive cyclones in unprecedented
spatial resolution.”
Another Juno investigation was the team’s
latest pursuit of the interior composition
of the gas giant. “Prior to Juno, we could
not distinguish between extreme models of
Jupiter’s interior rotation, which all fitted
the data collected by Earth-based observations
and other deep space missions,” said
Tristan Guillot, a Juno co-investigator from
the Université Côte d’Azur, Nice, France.
“But Juno is different. It orbits the planet
from pole to pole and gets closer to Jupiter
Looking Up
This infrared 3-D image of Jupiter’s north pole was derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument
aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM.
than any spacecraft ever before. Thanks to
the amazing increase in accuracy brought
by Juno’s gravity data, we have essentially
solved the issue of how Jupiter’s interior
rotates: The zones and belts that we see in
the atmosphere rotating at different speeds
extend to about 1,900 miles. At this point,
hydrogen becomes conductive enough to be
dragged into near-uniform rotation by the
planet’s powerful magnetic field.”
The same data used to analyze Jupiter’s
rotation contain information on the planet’s
interior structure and composition. Not
knowing the interior rotation was severely
limiting the ability to probe the deep interior.
“Now our work can really begin in earnest
-- determining the interior composition of the
solar system’s largest planet,” said Guillot.
Juno is only about one-third of the way
through its planned mapping mission and
already we are beginning to discover hints
on how Jupiter’s interior dynamo works.
Juno has logged nearly 122 million miles
to complete 11 science passes since entering
Jupiter’s orbit on July 4, 2016. Juno’s 12th
science pass will be on May 24.
More information on the Juno mission:
https://www.nasa.gov/juno
https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu
Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter:
https://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno
https://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno
More information on Jupiter:
https://www.nasa.gov/jupiter •
“We’d never have got a chance to go outside and look at
the earth if it hadn’t been for space exploration and NASA.”
– James Lovelock
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