Iggy Makarevich¸ LMNO: Fortean Blues

NASA has released spectacular images of Juno’s first close flyby of Jupiter. The flyby was a success and the results are intense.

Bravo to the heroes who are our Magellan, our Columbus. Just look at this stuff and let your mind fly.

Going in then leaving the area.

Whoa. Nice! This one is when the probe was just 4,200km above the planet.

The South Polar aurora in infrared.

The pictures show the swirling clouds of the gas giant at both its poles – views that no previous mission has managed to acquire in such detail.
Juno captured the data last weekend as it made its first close approach to the planet since going into orbit in July. The flyby took the spacecraft just 4,200km above Jupiter’s multi-coloured atmosphere. The 6MB of data gathered by Juno is still being analysed, but principal investigator Scott Bolton said new things were already obvious. “First glimpse of Jupiter’s north pole, and it looks like nothing we have seen or imagined before,” the Southwest Research Institute scientist said in a Nasa statement. “It’s bluer in colour up there than other parts of the planet, and there are a lot of storms. ”

There is no sign of the latitudinal bands or zones and belts that we are used to – this image is hardly recognisable as Jupiter. “We’re seeing signs that the clouds have shadows, possibly indicating that the clouds are at a higher altitude than other features.”
www.bbc.co.uk…

Fabulous.