The Juice mission shows Jupiter and the cyclones at its north pole as we’ve never seen them before.
Three recent images of Jupiter’s polar cyclones, courtesy of NASA’s Juno probe, show that gas structures on the planet’s surface behave differently. This triad of photographs, taken in different wavelengths (infrared, visible light and microwaves), represents the latest major discovery from the probe currently traveling through the Jupiter system.
The turbulent surface of Jupiter is not yet fully understood. While in equatorial latitudes multi-colored currents circulating in opposite directions are observed, dozens of cyclones appear at the poles, noticeably interrupting their composition. Currently, one of the best explanations for this phenomenon points to a connection between the gas giant’s high rotation speed and the enormous amount of heat it generates at the poles.
The Juno mission was launched to explore the planet and its most promising moons, such as Io or Europa. Thanks to its instruments, NASA obtained the first clear images of Jupiter’s poles and their corresponding cyclones. Although less than ten years have passed since the probe arrived in the system, knowledge about it has advanced significantly. Today, for example, astronomers know that the size of the vortices at the poles of Jupiter range from 4000 to 4600 kilometers in width. It was also recognized that these structures move and transform, and as far as the ship was able to visualize, they do not disappear.
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The three new images come from the Infrared Instrument for Aurora Retrieval (JIRAM), Microwave Radiometer (MWR) and conventional camera JunoCAM, which also recently provided the first images of the south pole of the volcanic world Io. Microwaves and infrared radiation indicate that cyclones extend at least 100 kilometers inland, which can be seen with the naked eye.
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In search of uncharted poles
The poles of the planets are areas that telescopes can rarely point to. What astronomers know about them comes from several missions that have crossed the solar system, such as the Voyager or Pioneer 11 probes. In contrast, Saturn’s rings were discovered in 1655 by astronomer Christiaan Huygens, but not until 1981. four centuries later. Science has spotted a hexagonal structure with a storm 30,000 kilometers wide at one of the poles.
Given that Saturn is a planet similar to Jupiter, researchers believed that a giant hexagon would also exist at its poles. However, the Juno probe encountered mysterious whirlpools clustered in dozens at both poles. “There’s so much going on here that we didn’t expect that we’d have to take a step back and start reimagining this as a whole new Jupiter,” explained Scott Bolton, the project’s principal investigator in May 2017, when the first images from it were released. light hitherto unexplored areas of the gas giant.
Juno will soon become a minor probe in the Jupiter system. NASA is working at full speed to launch Europa Clipper, with the goal of exploring Europa, the frozen moon of Jupiter. On the other hand, the European Space Agency has already sent its own ship, nicknamed “Juice”, which will try to independently explore the Galilean moons.