NASA's Juno captures 3 waves of Jupiter's polar cyclones

This composite shows views of Jupiter's north polar cyclones in three different wavelengths of light — microwave, visible and ultraviolet — captured by NASA's Juno mission. These differing perspectives allowed Juno scientists to hypothesize that not all Jovian polar cyclones are created equal.

The infrared image on the right was obtained from data collected by the spacecraft's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (GIRAM) instrument. The composite image in the center was collected by the JunoCAM visible-light imager. Although taken with separate instruments recording different wavelengths of light, the two images depict Jupiter's north polar storms as well-defined and similar in scale.

Data on the left collected by Juno's Microwave Radiometer (MWR), shows polar storms in another light. MWR enables viewing of Juno Deep into Jupiter By recording the planet's microwave emission. In the MWR graphic, polar storms at the 4 and 6 o'clock positions have bright microwave signatures, indicating that they extend above the clouds, at least 62 miles (100 kilometers) down. The size of those two storms is comparable to that seen in the visible light and infrared images, but the other storms, as seen by the MWR, have significantly reduced emission intensity.

Another disparity between the MWR graphic and the visible light and infrared can be seen in how the central cyclone is depicted by the data. In infrared and visible light images, the central cyclone is clearly visible; With MWR data, all that disappears. This disparity indicates that the surface structure of the central cyclone must be very different from that of the surrounding storms.

Ziram „sees” in infrared light that is invisible to the human eye. It captures infrared light from the heat of Jupiter's upper atmosphere, probes the top of the weather layer, and breaks in the clouds allow views as deep as 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below Jupiter's cloud tops.

JunoCam's visible light images capture reflected sunlight, very similar to what a human eye would see if a person could ride along with Juno. Source images from JunoGame are available to the public https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing.

Like JIRAM, the MWR instrument records the glow of Jupiter's atmosphere, but the glow is caused by temperatures at depths far beyond anything achievable with previous spacecraft or Earth-based observations. MWR's six radio channels look progressively deeper below the visible cloud tops, with a range of 200 miles (320 kilometers) from the top of the clouds (for the high-frequency channel) or below (for the low-frequency channel).

More information about Juno is available here https://www.nasa.gov/juno And https://missionjuno.swri.edu. For more on this discovery and other scientific results, see https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/science-findings.