{"id":298,"date":"2018-05-11T10:40:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-11T10:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/leicester-to-jupiter\/?p=298"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:28:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:28:19","slug":"new-views-of-jupiter-showcases-swirling-clouds-on-giant-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/leicester-to-jupiter\/2018\/05\/11\/new-views-of-jupiter-showcases-swirling-clouds-on-giant-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNew views of Jupiter\u201d showcases swirling clouds on giant planet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Members of NASA\u2019s Juno mission team, some of the world\u2019s leading observers of Jupiter, and citizen scientists from across the globe are attending a workshop \u2018New Views of Jupiter: Pro-Am Collaborations during and beyond the NASA Juno Mission\u2019 at the Royal Astronomical Society in London on 10-11 May.<\/em><\/strong>

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JunoCam images presented at the meeting by citizen scientists Gerald Eichst\u00e4dt and Se\u00e1n Doran include an animation showing the evolution of swirling features in the giant planet\u2019s atmosphere and a composite image of Jupiter\u2019s cloud tops.

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As the Juno spacecraft swung away from Jupiter\u2019s south pole following its close approach on April 1, 2018, it acquired the images to create this composite. Image via NASA\/SwRI\/MSSS\/Gerald Eichst\u00e4dt\/Se\u00e1n Doran.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Gerald Eichst\u00e4dt, a mathematician working as a software professional, has taken two images from JunoCam and reprojected them to the same vantage point to enable a direct comparison between the images and show the subtle motions within the atmosphere. By modelling the movement of individual pixels in the images, he has created an animation that extrapolates the swirling evolution of the vortices in the atmosphere.

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Eichst\u00e4dt explains: \u201cThis animation represents a \u2018feasibility test\u2019. Building on this initial work, we can add in more variables that will give us a more detailed description and physical understanding of Jupiter\u2019s atmosphere.\u201d

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Se\u00e1n Doran, in collaboration with Eichst\u00e4dt, has created a new composite image of Jupiter as seen by Juno as it swung away from Jupiter\u2019s south pole on 1st April 2018. Because Jupiter was larger than JunoCam\u2019s field of view when the main portion of the image was taken, Eichst\u00e4dt rendered four other images to the same viewing geometry to reconstruct a mosaic of the whole planet. Doran then processed the composite image to balance and blend the overlapping components, sharpen the contrast, and fill gaps.

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\u201cIt\u2019s something of a labour of love that requires plenty of patience,\u201d says Doran. \u201cEnergetic particles impact the CCD and produce bright specks. Once I\u2019d finished the processing, I needed to go through and repair a couple hundred of these bright pixels.\u201d

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Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester, who has co-organised the workshop with the support of Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure, says: \u201cThe contribution of the Earth-based support campaign to the Juno mission, both professional and amateur, has proven to be invaluable in filling the spatial, temporal, and spectral gaps in Juno\u2019s capabilities. Now two years into the mission, we\u2019ve seen some tremendous new science emerging from this collaboration, and breath-taking imagery of Jupiter\u2019s complex atmosphere that would not have been possible without the talented army of citizen scientists that have been working alongside the JunoCam team every step of the way.\u201d

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John Rogers of the British Astronomical Association, who co-organised the workshop says: \u201cMany of these people have known each other for years by email addresses and social media alone, so to have them all in one place will be an incredibly special opportunity, fostering new collaborations and cementing existing friendships.\u201d

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Further information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The workshop \u2018New Views of Jupiter: Pro-Am Collaborations during and beyond the NASA Juno Mission\u2019 builds on a 2016 workshop, \u2018Juno Ground-Based Support from Amateurs: Science and Public Impact\u2019, hosted by the Observatoire de la C\u00f4te d’Azur. Both workshops have been supported by Europlanet 2020 RI through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654208.

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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Italian Space Agency (ASI), contributed two instruments, a Ka-band frequency translator (KaT) and the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM). Lockheed Martin Space, Denver, built the spacecraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n



The public can follow the mission on Twitter at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTweets by NASAJuno<\/a>