Juno Gets a Look Below Jupiter’s Bands of Clouds
New observations from NASA Juno taken in microwave light show that the visible zones and bands on the surface extend below and change while Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has been found to extend down 500 kilometers below the surface.
While many people are preparing for the weekend holiday celebrations and observations, the planetary science world is still making amazing discoveries. We turn now to NASA’s Juno spacecraft. One of the primary goals of this mission is to gain a greater understanding of how the storms and cloud layers work beneath the surface. To that end, the spacecraft is equipped with a microwave radiometer.
This instrument is designed to measure microwave emissions from deep inside the planet, using wavelengths ranging from 1.4 centimeters to 50 centimeters. The corresponding atmospheric pressures are about 0.6 bars at the surface, which is less than the surface of Earth, and down past 100 bars or 250 kilometers beneath the cloud tops. Sometimes, you have to step outside visible light to find what you are looking for, and that’s what was done here.
When we look at Jupiter in visible light, we see a pattern of lighter zones and darker belts. You can…
