Juno gets the first-ever view of Jupiter’s North Pole

The infrared images revealed previously unknown warm and hot spots, Ariani said, and a surprisingly clear first image of Jupiter’s southern aurora.

“This image is hardly recognizable as Jupiter”, he said in a statement.

Juno reached Jupiter in early July, after a almost five-year journey to the gas giant that ended with a delicate maneuver into orbit past the planet’s intense bands of radiation.

In addition to taking a fearsome-looking infrared image of a southern Jovian aurora with an instrument called JIRAM, Juno turned on at least seven other instruments to gather data.

Juno’s quest is to investigate the secrets of the Solar System by explaining the origin and evolution of its biggest planet. “There is nothing on Jupiter that anywhere near resembles that”. “‘Look at these images; they are coming from Jupiter; we’re flying over the pole for the first time!’ It’s just jaw dropping”.

When NASA’s Juno spacecraft first flew by the planet Jupiter on august 27, all we got was a fuzzy image of the gas giant from a glancing angle.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft flicked on its cameras and zipped by our big red neighbor at altitudes as low as 2,500 miles on August 27, according to the space agency, which unveiled the images today.

Scientists say the images of the gas giant’s north and south poles – the first ever taken – are “like nothing we have seen or imagined before”, according to a statement about the mission that NASA released on September 2.

Unlike rocky Earth and Mars, Jupiter is a gas giant that likely formed first, shortly after the sun. The Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper, an instrument provided by the Italian Space Agency, is allowing scientists to peer beneath the gas giant’s upper atmosphere.

The new images also show that, unlike Saturn, Jupiter doesn’t have a hexagonal jet stream in its north and south poles.

The data will continue to stream in for some time, keeping scientists on the Juno mission plenty busy. “Waves detected the signature emissions of the energetic particles that generate the massive auroras that encircle Jupiter’s north pole. Now we are going to try to figure out where the electrons come from that are generating them”.

Jupiter’s south pole seen from 58,700 miles.

And if you’re into other hidden visual spectacles, gaze at this incredible animated movie of Jupiter’s aurora, which the JIRAM instrument also recorded.

Juno will make 36 more passes around the planet, each lasting 14 days, before it descends to its doom within the veil of clouds.