The image on the left of the image below was taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. And on the right is one of the processed images. It has increased color saturation and contrast to sharpen small-scale Jupiter features, NASA said in a statement. The agency explained that this processing is important for reducing noise or other artifacts in portraits.
NASA said: “This clearly reveals some of the most fascinating aspects of Jupiter’s atmosphere, including color variations due to differences in chemical composition, the three-dimensional nature of Jupiter’s vortices, and the small, bright ‘pop-ups that form in the upper parts of the atmosphere’. ‘Clouds.” Of course, there’s no denying that this version of Jupiter’s marble “skin” is more visually striking — but the image on the left shows Jupiter’s true colors.
The latest special footage of Jupiter is thanks to citizen scientist Björn Jónsson, who collected and collated publicly available data captured by NASA’s Juno mission. Juno, a spacecraft spanning the width of a basketball court, orbits the reddish-brown world in a long, circular orbit while capturing information and images about its planet.
Juno has been a force since launching from Earth in 2011. It has sent back a spectacular collection of photos of Jupiter, from azure and opal-colored watercolor swirls, to gorgeous pink-hued Jupiter atmosphere, and even darker, more realistic images of Jupiter’s layers.
Plus, on April 9, Juno reached its closest approach to Jupiter, just over 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops, paving the way for this “stop motion movie.”
On April 9, JunoCam photographed sailing with the spacecraft. Citizen scientist Andrea Luck created this animated sequence using raw image data from JunoCam.
Juno was about 3,300 miles (5,300 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops at about 50 degrees latitude when it took the raw image on July 5. “At that moment, the spacecraft was traveling at approximately 130,000 mph (209,000 km/h) relative to the planet,” NASA said.