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A JunoCam image processed by Sarah Liberatore © PUBLIC DOMAIN

Image Credit: Sarah Liberatore © PUBLIC DOMAIN

NASA's Juno mission has released some wonderful videos showing the approach to the giant planet using timelapse images, and the spectacular atmospheric circulation captured by JunoCam

At the recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute gave a great presentation about the Juno mission at Jupiter and some of the questions it is answering and raising about gas giant structure. In passing, he showed some videos that brought the astounding circulation of the cloud layers of Jupiter to life. He started with a timelapse image of the view of Jupiter as the spacecraft approached, that takes the viewer from the sort of view a telescope on Earth would show – Galileo's telescope, with a bit of artistic licence –  to a close-up of the Galilean moons as they orbit the planet, regularly winking out of view as they move into Jupiter's shadow. It's a wonderful vision to introduce the science of Jupiter, and it is available to download from the JunoCam website at the SWRI, or on YouTube. 

That's not all there is.  There is a whole gallery of JunoCam images processed and interpreted by members of the public – some of them show Jupiter as you will never have seen it before – and a lot of information about the various instruments on Juno and the complex orbit designed to build up ever-more-detailed datasets while minimising the time spent close to Jupiter and its fearsome radiation environment. And one Jupiter fan in Ireland, Seán Doran (@_Theseaning) has combined JunoCam images into great animations using some of the spectacular colour-enhanced images, such as the Perijove 9 sequence shown below.