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Three waves can be seen in this excerpt from a JunoCam image taken on February 2, 2017 during Juno's fourth flyby of Jupiter. The region depicted in this image is part of the visibly dark band located north of the Jupiter Equator, called the North Equatorial Belt. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / JunoCam
Massive moving air structures appearing like waves in Jupiter's atmosphere were first detected by NASA's Voyager missions during their overflights of the giant gas world in 1979. The JunoCam Camera aboard NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter also imaged the atmosphere. JunoCam's data has detected atmospheric wave trains, dominant atmospheric patterns that drag one after the other as they travel the planet, most of them concentrating near the Jupiter's equator.
The JunoCam imager has resolved the distances between individual wave peaks in these trains smaller than ever. This research provides valuable insights into the dynamics of Jupiter's atmosphere and structure in the areas beneath the waves.
"JunoCam has counted more distinct wave trains than any other spacecraft mission since Voyager," said Glenn Orton, a Juno scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The trains, which have only two or twenty dozen waves, can have a distance separating the peaks of about 65 km and more than 1,200 km." The shadow of the wave structure in a image allowed us to estimate the height of a wave at a height of about 10 km. "
Most of the waves are visible in elongated wave trains, distributed from east to west, with wave ridges perpendicular to the train's orientation. Other fronts in similar wave trains tilt significantly in relation to the orientation of the wave train, but other wave trains follow inclined or sinuous trajectories.
"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."
Although the analysis is underway, most of the waves should be atmospheric gravity waves – rising and falling ripples forming in the atmosphere above something that disrupts the flow of light. air, such as a storm updraft, flow disturbances around other features or others. disruption that JunoCam does not detect.
The JunoCam instrument is particularly qualified to make such a discovery. JunoCam is a visible light color camera with a wide-angle field of view designed to capture remarkable images of Jupiter's cloud poles and tops. In Juno's eyes, he helps provide context for other spacecraft instruments. JunoCam has been integrated into the spacecraft mainly for public engagement purposes, although its images are also useful to the scientific team.
Juno was launched on August 5, 2011 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and came into orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. To date, it has completed 15 scientific passages over Jupiter. The 16th Juno Science Pass will be held on October 29th. During these overflights, Juno probes under Jupiter's dark cloud cover and studies his aurora to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere, and magnetosphere.
Explore further:
Image: The Southern Hemisphere of Jupiter
More information:
More information on the Juno mission is available at the following address:
www.nasa.gov/juno
www.missionjuno.swri.edu
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