When NASA’s $1 billion Juno spacecraft completed its 11th high-speed trip around Jupiter, it sent back amazing new pictures of the planet. As Physics-Astronomy reports, the amazing spacecraft gets relatively close to the biggest gas giant planet of our solar system and takes new photos with its JunoCam instrument roughly every 53 days, while traveling at speeds up to 130,000 mph.
It can take days or even weeks to receive the images. Since researchers at NASA and the Southwest Research Institute uploaded the raw image data to their websites, dozens of people have processed the black-and-white files into gorgeous, calendar-ready color pictures.
These images clearly show the beauty of the gas giant. Here are some of the best new photos and animations made with JunoCam data by Doran and other fans of the spacecraft.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
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Whoa–those are some seriously weird but beautiful images! Like Earthly clouds, you can “see” all sorts of things–like some kind of lizard/salamander, faces with an ear and otherwise stuff that might be from the Alien series.
Yes, they’d make great photos for a Rorsach test 🙂
Fantastical! The swirls and colors made me smile. Thank you for sharing!
So glad you enjoyed it as much as I did, Lurene! Thank you 🙂
Along with its beauty, Jupiter always inspires me with thoughts of the wondrous ways life would be different if I lived on a planet that size. Mind-boggling!
Mind-boggling indeed. Jupiter is a gas giant, so I guess we’d be floating jellyfish if we lived there!
Wow, those are spectacular! What a gorgeous planet!
I know, right?? Pretty stunning!