Free Republic

As part of its sixth orbit of Jupiter’s turbulent cloud tops, Juno passed close to Jupiter’s center (aka. perijove), which took place at 6:55 p.m. PDT (9:55 p.m. EDT). Eleven minutes later – at 7:06 p.m. PDT (10:06 p.m. EDT) – the probe flew over the Great Red Spot. In the process, Juno was at a distance of just 9,000 km (5,600 miles) from the anticyclonic storm, which is the closest any spacecraft has ever flown to it. During the flyby, Juno had all eight of its scientific instruments (as well its imager, the JunoCam) trained directly on the storm....

Explanation: Two remarkable global maps of Jupiter's banded cloud tops can be compared by just sliding your cursor over this sharp projection (or follow this link) of image data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Both captured on January 19, during back-to-back 10 hour rotations of the ruling gas giant, the all-planet projections represent the first in a series of planned annual portraits by the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program. Comparing the two highlights cloud movements and measures wind speeds in the planet's dynamic atmosphere. In fact, the Great Red Spot, the famous long-lived swirling storm boasting 300 mile per hour...

Explanation: In this sharp snapshot, the Solar System's largest moon Ganymede poses next to Jupiter, the largest planet. Captured on March 10 with a small telescope from our fair planet Earth, the scene also includes Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the Solar System's largest storm. In fact, Ganymede is about 5,260 kilometers in diameter. That beats out all three of its other fellow Galilean satellites, along with Saturn's Moon Titan at 5,150 kilometers and Earth's own Moon at 3,480 kilometers. Though its been shrinking lately, the Great Red Spot's diameter is still around 16,500 kilometers. Jupiter, the Solar System's ruling gas...

While this is merely a convenient illusion caused by the passage of Ganymede in front of Jupiter – something it does on a regular basis – the timing and appearance are perfect. The above image, however, was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on April 21st, 2014, when kids were perhaps thinking of the Easter Bunny, not monsters and goblins. At the time, Hubble was being used to monitor changes in Jupiter’s immense Great Red Spot (GRS) storm. During the exposures, the shadow of the Jovian moon Ganymede swept across the center of the GRS, giving the giant planet the...

Explanation: Two dark shadows loom across the banded and mottled cloud tops of Jupiter in this sharp telescopic view. In fact, captured on January 3rd, about a month after the ruling gas giant appeared at opposition in planet Earth's sky, the scene includes the shadow casters. Visible in remarkable detail at the left are the large Galilean moons Ganymede (top) and Io. With the two moon shadows still in transit, Jupiter's rapid rotation has almost carried its famous Great Red Spot (GRS) around the planet's limb from the right. The pale GRS was preceded by the smaller but similar hued...

For the past few months, astronomers have tracked an emerging second red spot on Jupiter, at left, a growing rival about one-half the diameter of the planet's trademark Great Red Spot. The Hubble Space Telescope has now snapped the first detailed pictures of what some observers are calling Red Spot Jr. Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore said this was the first time scientists had witnessed the birth of one of these huge oval spots, presumably a convective phenomenon like a powerful thunderstorm. The Great Red Spot was already present when observers first looked with telescopes at...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 13 WIRO at Jupiter Credit: A. Kutyrev (SSAI/GSFC), D. Rapchun(GST/GSFC), J. Norris(NASA/GSFC) R. Canterna & R. Martin (U Wyoming) Explanation: Gazing out over the mountaintops from the Wyoming InfraRed Observatory (WIRO), astronomers recently recorded this bizarre looking image of the solar system's ruling planet, gas giant Jupiter. The false-color picture is a composite of images taken to test a sophisticated digital camera operating at liquid helium...