Here are Juno’s first close-ups of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

The Juno spacecraft’s first closeup views of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot are here. The spacecraft flew just 9,000 kilometers above the famous storm on July 10.

Scientists had expected the images to take until at least the night of July 13 to download because the spacecraft’s antenna was pointed away from Earth. But the first images arrived early, hitting the internet at about 11:30 a.m. EDT on July 12.

The 16,000-kilometer-wide storm appears as an angry red eye full of whorls and swirls. But there’s more to come: In addition to capturing pictures with its camera, Juno measured the spot with eight scientific instruments. Stay tuned.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *