NASA's Juno detects big waves in the atmosphere of Jupiter

NASA's Juno spacecraft captured an image of massive moving gas structures that resemble waves in Jupiter's atmosphere.

The so-called wave trains – a group of waves of the same or similar length traveling in the same direction – were first detected by the Voyager missions as they flew over the gas giant in 1979.

The photo was taken with the JunoCam instrument – a wide-angle, visible-light color camera designed to capture remarkable images of Jupiter's cloud poles and tops.

"JunoCam has counted more separate wave trains than any other spacecraft mission since Voyager," said Glenn Orton, a scientist with the Juno mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement. .

"The trains, which have only two waves and several tens, can have a distance between ridges of about 40 km and a width of about 760 km," he said. .

In fact, the distance between the three individual wave peaks of the image is the smallest ever seen before. Meanwhile, the shadow associated with the center of the three waves is about 25 miles long. From the angle of illumination, NASA experts deduced that the peak of the wave was probably about 10 km above the main cloud.

Three waves can be seen in this image, which is an excerpt of a JunoCam image taken on February 2, 2017 during Juno's fourth flyby of Jupiter. NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / JunoCam

"The waves may appear near other Jovian atmospheric features, near vortices or along flowlines, and others have no relation to anything nearby," he said. said Orton. "Some wave trains seem to converge and others overlap, possibly at two different atmospheric levels.In one case, the wave fronts seem to radiate from the center of a cyclone."

The last image provides valuable information on the dynamics of Jupiter's atmosphere and structure in the areas beneath the waves.

Although the exact cause of the waves remains uncertain, it is generally thought that they are atmospheric gravity waves – ripples that form in the atmosphere above something that disrupts the flow of air, such as than a storm water pull.

Juno was launched in Capupal, Florida, on August 5, 2016, to arrive at Jupiter in July 2016. Up to now, he has completed 15 scientific flyers around the planet, providing fascinating information about the origins, the structure, atmosphere and magnetic field of the gas giant.