The South Pole of Jupiter

[Just Jim]

OK, I just found this on the NASA website, put out about 5 days ago when the Juno probe did a polar orbit over Jupiter's South Pole.....

..... and took this!  I have no words..... except wow! 

Here's the link to the article for anyone who's interested.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/a-whole-new-jupiter-first-science-results-from-nasa-s-juno-mission

Edited May 30, 2017 by Just Jim

[HebaruSan]

Paging Dr. Mandelbrot, Dr. Mandelbrot to the observatory please.

[Shpaget]

From the article, I'm unable to figure out what they mean by "enhanced color". Where does that blue come from?

[monophonic]

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

From the article, I'm unable to figure out what they mean by "enhanced color". Where does that blue come from?

Too late here for me to check which way Jupiter tilts, but I'm willing to hazard a guess that that blue and black center is polar night. Only the highest clouds get good light and some lower ones receive scattered blue rays, but deeper down there is darkness until Jupiter reaches its spring equinox.

[Green Baron]

The Home Of The Kraken !

They enhanced colour and contrast, simply meaning that wavelengths or greyscale where mapped to colours. Typical thing in many astronomic photos. And several photos were combined to show the whole pole in an equal lighting because Jupiter's axis is only very slightly tilted (few degrees).

 

Edited May 30, 2017 by Green Baron

[nathan1]

14 hours ago, Shpaget said:

From the article, I'm unable to figure out what they mean by "enhanced color". Where does that blue come from?

I found another Juno picture of Jupiter (this one of the north pole) that includes two different color-enhancements side-by-side: https://images.nasa.gov/#/details-PIA21031.html. It looks like a good example of the kind of difference color enhancement can make. From the description there:

Quote

Two versions of the image have been contrast-enhanced differently to bring out detail near the dark terminator and near the bright limb.

 

[radonek]

16 hours ago, monophonic said:

Too late here for me to check which way Jupiter tilts, but I'm willing to hazard a guess that that blue and black center is polar night.

There are several dark spots up there in brighter regions.

[KSK]

17 hours ago, Green Baron said:

The Home Of The Kraken!

No way - that there is the Eye of the Kraken (insert backing track to taste).  

And with apologies to all the poets out there...

Lo the Kraken spake, by the star-dogged Mun,
Twas deaf to groans or sighs,
Turned its face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed us with its eye.
 

Edited May 31, 2017 by KSK

[Green Baron]

I do not understand it but it sounds spooky :-)

 

[Just Jim]

43 minutes ago, KSK said:

No way - that there is the Eye of the Kraken (insert backing track to taste).  

And with apologies to all the poets out there...

Lo the Kraken spake, by the star-dogged Mun,
Twas deaf to groans or sighs,
Turned its face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed us with its eye.
 

Wait... no way..... 

The Rime of the Ancient... Kraken???  

Edited May 31, 2017 by Just Jim

[Exploro]

20 hours ago, monophonic said:

Too late here for me to check which way Jupiter tilts, but I'm willing to hazard a guess that that blue and black center is polar night. Only the highest clouds get good light and some lower ones receive scattered blue rays, but deeper down there is darkness until Jupiter reaches its spring equinox.

In another image from Juno the blue cloud regions appear on the dayside of the Jupiter's southern pole. I think you might be right about the altitude of the clouds determining the color. Aside from chemical composition and temperature of the clouds the cloud height also plays a role in the color of the clouds.

Back in August of 1996 Robert Nemiroff wrote a brief article on Astronomy Picture of the Day. In that he wrote that in warmer regions various compounds are brought up from the depths of Jupiter's atmosphere into high altitude. This chemical soup would obviously tint the clouds. Lower altitude clouds in the bands that surround the gas gaint appeared to be blue. If the poles of Jupiter are anything like the poles of Earth we could expect that polar subsidence would supress the kind of vertical cloud development we observe in the bands that encircle the gas giant. This might account for why the clouds of the poles are lower in altitude compared to the clouds in the bands.

Edited May 31, 2017 by Exploro

[KSK]

55 minutes ago, Exploro said:

In another image from Juno the blue cloud regions appear on the dayside of the Jupiter's southern pole. I think you might be right about the altitude of the clouds determining the color. Aside from chemical composition and temperature of the clouds the cloud height also plays a role in the color of the clouds.

Back in August of 1996 Robert Nemiroff wrote a brief article on Astronomy Picture of the Day. In that he wrote that in warmer regions various compounds are brought up from the depths of Jupiter's atmosphere into high altitude. This chemical soup would obviously tint the clouds. Lower altitude clouds in the bands that surround the gas gaint appeared to be blue. If the poles of Jupiter are anything like the poles of Earth we could expect that polar subsidence would supress the kind of vertical cloud development we observe in the bands that encircle the gas giant. This might account for why the clouds of the poles are lower in altitude compared to the clouds in the bands.

I'm wondering if the Frontier Developments team have seen this? I'd think they'd be all over more colourful - but scientifically plausible - gas giants for Elite: Dangerous.

[kerbiloid]

What is absolutely weird and shocking: its absolutely flat surface when you know that it consists of whirlwinds.

P.S.
Btw, did anybody match its weird fuzzy core?

Edited May 31, 2017 by kerbiloid

[SuperFastJellyfish]

I just watched this through an article on Spaceflightnow...awesome.

Quote

 

The animation posted above was created by Gerald Eichstädt, a space enthusiast from Germany, and Seán Doran in London.

Doran said the animation, which runs more than a minute, uses 31 JunoCam images projected onto about 3,000 frames.

 

 

[StupidAndy]

...and science makes another thing weirder! with literature in a close second!

but seriously, its so pretty! can anyone explain why its that blueish color? ammonia? some other element?

[Jaelommiss]

Jupiter got all excited when he saw that little Earth were sending someone to see him.

Goodness, it had been so long since there was someone to listen to him, someone to call a friend, someone to tell him that it was all be okay. He was hoping we were coming to give him hugs and a temporary reprieve from his stalwart watch over his smaller brothers and sisters. He was the biggest of all the planets in the system, and felt that he needed to keep them safe if he could. It had gottern harder as more and more moons flocked to him, seeking his protection from the uncaring cosmic forces, but he did what he could. He was proud of his sibling planets for helping their own moons, but the bulk of the burden fell to him. That is why he got all excited to see a messenger from little Earth. It had been so long since he'd heard news from his smaller sister.

Ever since Mars lost the fledgeling life on growing on his skin both he and Earth had grown quiet. Mars mourned their passing. His core, bright and hot, had gradually petered out until there was nothing left but a bitter, frozen lump. Earth had done what she could, Jupiter had heard, but he could see that she was having a hard time with her brother's sadness. Jupiter was so excited to heat Earth's little messenger. Hopefully it would be good news. Did Mars clean himself up and support life once more? Jupiter hoped so. His younger brother had always been so cheerful when talking about them. The giant cleaned himself and his moons as best he could—look your best for family he always thought—and waited patiently as the curious little box grew larger and larger.

It was something quite unlike the terrestrial messengers he normally received. A bizarre contraption of metal and wires, it remained silent as it entered his orbit with mechanical precision. It had been sending out transmissions and receiving others from the direction of Earthi this entire time, but after capturing into orbit those transmissions multiplied exponentially. Sensors and cameras opened up on the craft's surface probing him and snapping pictures of his bare surface. It also paid the same disrepectful attention to his little moons, scanning any that came near in their curiousity and beaming the invasive results back to Earth. What was his little sister thinking? Why would she do this to him? They had always been friends, though they had drifted in the time since Mars was overcome with grief. More than anything Jupiter felt violated. The other planets knew that taking nude photos of your siblings and beaming them across the system was wrong, yet here little Earth was doing it.

There was nothing else to say about it. Jupiter was feeling a little blue.

 

Edit: My mind does weird things when it wakes up after taking some powerful sleeping meds on only three hours of sleep.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Jaelommiss

[NSEP]

Looks like cosmic black coffee! I dont like black coffee tho....

[wumpus]

On 5/30/2017 at 0:12 PM, HebaruSan said:

Paging Dr. Mandelbrot, Dr. Mandelbrot to the observatory please.

Just as long as he doesn't block Van Gogh's view.  Looks like this is what he was trying to paint.

[tater]

 

Missed the fact I reposted the first vid.

Edited June 3, 2017 by tater

[Beehelp]

Also found some photos at http://solarstory.net/planets/jupiter. The way we see Jupiter in all those awesome NASA photographs is not at all how it really looks.  So even if the “great red spot” appears red in photographs, it only appears that way because of a combination of the light reflecting off of it, and how well the photograph was enhanced.

 

Edited June 14, 2017 by Beehelp

[Green Baron]

Recent Jupiter amateur photos. If you skip those with a colour tendency you get a feeling what Jupiter looks like to the human eye in a telescope.

[Overfloater]

Nahhhh.

That's a Van Gogh painting.

[kerbiloid]

Gas giants are covered with stripes to hide from predators in the forest.

Or vice versa: to strike suddenly.

Edited June 15, 2017 by kerbiloid