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Shannon Stirone

Dec 9, 2017 11:00 AM

Space Photos of the Week: Juno Swoops In to Give Jupiter Its Close Up

These mesmerizing blue and white swirls are giant cyclones and storms that roar in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere.

Image may contain Machine and Propeller — NASA
Take a look at this cool space trash can! Seen here is the Cygnus cargo ship, docked with the International Space Station at sunrise. See that eerie blue glow to the right? That’s the curve of the Earth, its atmosphere illuminated by the sun. Cygnus arrived at the station on November 13 carrying supplies and scientific experiments to keep the crew going. After it docks however, it is reloaded with 6,200 pounds of trash accumulated over a few months from the six crew members. When it’s full it is sent back down to Earth where it burns up in the atmosphere. The crew released Cygnus from the station on December 6, and it will remain in orbit until the 18th when its engines fire twice, pushing it back towards Earth.

Image may contain Universe Space Astronomy Outer Space Nebula Nature and Outdoors — NASA
Take a look at this cool space trash can! Seen here is the Cygnus cargo ship, docked with the International Space Station at sunrise. See that eerie blue glow to the right? That’s the curve of the Earth, its atmosphere illuminated by the sun. Cygnus arrived at the station on November 13 carrying supplies and scientific experiments to keep the crew going. After it docks however, it is reloaded with 6,200 pounds of trash accumulated over a few months from the six crew members. When it’s full it is sent back down to Earth where it burns up in the atmosphere. The crew released Cygnus from the station on December 6, and it will remain in orbit until the 18th when its engines fire twice, pushing it back towards Earth.

This week’s space photos are simply mind-blowing. First up is the king of the gas giants—and in this case, the king of the tempests. This close up photo features meandering storms in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. The Juno spacecraft snapped this photo during its ninth orbit around the planet The detail is unprecedented—you can even see the shadows being cast on the lower clouds by the storms hovering at the top.

And of course, Hubble never fails to deliver. This time it has sent back a photo of galaxy cluster Abel 2537, which prominently features gravitational lensing. Lensing like this allows cosmologists and astronomers to understand how massive the object is based on how much light it’s bending. Those smudges and streaks are galaxies, and their curves are caused by the actual bending of the environment around the cluster. It’s warping space-time itself!

Finally we’ll wrap up with a quadriptych homage to asteroids. This series of four photos was taken by the Very Large Telescope of four seemingly average asteroids. The asteroid belt and the rocks within it live between Mars and Jupiter, but contrary to popular belief (thank you Star Wars) these rocky bodies are very spread out, with an average distance of 2 million miles separating them.

Not done traveling around the universe? Not to fret, check out the full collection here.

Topicsspace NASA juno Jupiter Photography

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