NASA's Juno probe captures an elusive "brown barge" on Jupiter



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NASA's Juno spacecraft has returned an image of a long brown oval known as the "brown barge", an elusive atmospheric feature in the southern equatorial belt of Jupiter.

The brown barges are cyclonic regions that are generally located in the northeastern equatorial belt of Jupiter, although they are also sometimes found in the southern equatorial belt.

They can often be difficult to detect visually because their color melts in the dark environment.

At other times, the material of the dark belt recedes, creating a lighter background on which the brown barge is more visible.

Brown barges generally dissipate after the entire cloud belt has been disrupted and reorganized.

Juno gives us the first glimpses of the detailed structure in such a barge, NASA said in a statement.

The picture was taken earlier this month when the spacecraft made its 15th flyby of Jupiter.

At the time, Juno was 11,950 kilometers from the summit of the planet, above a southern latitude of about 22 degrees.

Scientist-citizen Kevin M Gill created the image using JunoCam imager data from the spacecraft, NASA said.

(This article has not been modified by Business Standard staff and is generated automatically from a syndicated feed).

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