Jupiter's clouds, auroras seen as never before in new Juno photos

New photos beamed back to Earth from NASA's Juno spacecraft show the beautiful, giant planet as never before.

Storms swirl in the new images, taken just before Juno's close pass by the planet on Aug. 27. The spacecraft's closest pass that day brought it about 2,500 miles above Jupiter's cloud tops, according to NASA.
The new photos reveal never-before-seen views of the planet's north polar region.

“First glimpse of Jupiter’s north pole, and it looks like nothing we have seen or imagined before,” said Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton, in a statement.

“It’s bluer in color up there than other parts of the planet, and there are a lot of storms. There is no sign of the latitudinal bands or zone and belts that we are used to — this image is hardly recognizable as Jupiter," he said.
"We’re seeing signs that the clouds have shadows, possibly indicating that the clouds are at a higher altitude than other features.”

Details of Jupiter's clouds revealed by NASA's Juno.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

The new images also show that, unlike Saturn, Jupiter doesn't have a hexagonal jet stream in its north and south poles.
“Saturn has a hexagon at the north pole,”  Bolton added. “There is nothing on Jupiter that anywhere near resembles that. The largest planet in our solar system is truly unique."
Juno also caught sight of Jupiter's auroras, snapping photos of the planet's extreme cosmic lights in infrared.
Until now, scientists hadn't been able to see Jupiter's southern aurora, but a powerful instrument on Juno revealed them for the first time.

This infrared image from Juno provides an unprecedented view of Jupiter's southern aurora. Such views are not possible from Earth.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

"These first infrared views of Jupiter’s north and south poles are revealing warm and hot spots that have never been seen before," said Alberto Adriani, co-investigator on Juno's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper instrument, in a statement.
"And while we knew that the first-ever infrared views of Jupiter's south pole could reveal the planet's southern aurora, we were amazed to see it for the first time."
Scientists also created a video (below) allowing viewers to "hear" the sound of Jupiter's auroras as Juno observed them.
The raw data taken by Juno didn't include a sound file, but researchers working with the mission converted the radio emissions into sound to better understand it.

Jupiter's auroras are larger than Earth itself, and unlike our planet's auroras, Jupiter's don't just come and go intermittently depending on how strong the sun's solar wind is as the time.

Jupiter's auroras — fueled by its powerful magnetic field — are constantly shining above the huge world.
Juno should continue to help scientists learn more about Jupiter's auroras, clouds and other aspects of the large planet as its 20-month-mission continues.
All of the spacecraft's instruments have been turned on and are collecting data, and they should continue to send information back to Earth through the course of the craft's next 36 flybys of Jupiter.