Jupiter's North Pole Unlike Anything Encountered in Solar System

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Jupiter's North Pole Unlike Anything Encountered in Solar System
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 2, 2016

NASA's Juno spacecraft has sent back the first-ever images of Jupiter's
north pole, taken during the spacecraft's first flyby of the planet with
its instruments switched on. The images show storm systems and weather
activity unlike anything previously seen on any of our solar system's
gas-giant planets.

Juno successfully executed the first of 36 orbital flybys on Aug. 27 when
the spacecraft came about 2,500 miles (4,200 kilometers) above Jupiter's
swirling clouds. The download of six megabytes of data collected during
the six-hour transit, from above Jupiter's north pole to below its south
pole, took one-and-a-half days. While analysis of this first data collection
is ongoing, some unique discoveries have already made themselves visible.

"First glimpse of Jupiter's north pole, and it looks like nothing we have
seen or imagined before," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of
Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "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. We're
seeing signs that the clouds have shadows, possibly indicating that the
clouds are at a higher altitude than other features."

One of the most notable findings of these first-ever pictures of Jupiter's
north and south poles is something that the JunoCam imager did not see.

"Saturn has a hexagon at the north pole," said Bolton. "There is nothing
on Jupiter that anywhere near resembles that. The largest planet in our
solar system is truly unique. We have 36 more flybys to study just how
unique it really is."

Along with JunoCam snapping pictures during the flyby, all eight of Juno's
science instruments were energized and collecting data. The Jovian Infrared
Auroral Mapper (JI-RAM), supplied by the Italian Space Agency, acquired
some remarkable images of Jupiter at its north and south polar regions
in infrared wavelengths.

"JIRAM is getting under Jupiter's skin, giving us our first infrared close-ups
of the planet," said Alberto Adriani, JIRAM co-investigator from Istituto
di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Rome. "These first infrared views
of Jupiter's north and south poles are revealing warm and hot spots that
have never been seen before. 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. No other instruments, both
from Earth or space, have been able to see the southern aurora. Now, with
JIRAM, we see that it appears to be very bright and well structured. The
high level of detail in the images will tell us more about the aurora's
morphology and dynamics."

Among the more unique data sets collected by Juno during its first scientific
sweep by Jupiter was that acquired by the mission's Radio/Plasma Wave
Experiment (Waves), which recorded ghostly- sounding transmissions emanating
from above the planet. These radio emissions from Jupiter have been known
about since the 1950s but had never been analyzed from such a close vantage
point.

"Jupiter is talking to us in a way only gas-giant worlds can," said Bill
Kurth, co-investigator for the Waves instrument from the University of
Iowa, Iowa City. "Waves detected the signature emissions of the energetic
particles that generate the massive auroras which encircle Jupiter's north
pole. These emissions are the strongest in the solar system. Now we are
going to try to figure out where the electrons come from that are generating
them."

The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida
and arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. JPL manages the Juno mission for
the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute
in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is
managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama,
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
Denver, built the spacecraft. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages
JPL for NASA.

More information on the Juno mission is available at these sites:

http://www.nasa.gov/juno

http://missionjuno.org

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno

http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

News Media Contact
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
ag...@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne....@nasa.gov / laura.l....@nasa.gov

2016-231