This composite image shows a hot spot in Jupiter's atmosphere. In the image on the left, taken on Sept. 16, 2020 by the Gemini North Telescope, the hot spot appears bright in the infrared at a wavelength of 5 microns.

The inset image on the right was taken by the JunoCam visible-light imager aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft, also on Sept. 16, during Juno's 29th close pass by Jupiter. Here, the hot spot appears dark.

Jupiter's hot spots have been known for a long time. On Dec. 7, 1995, the Galileo probe likely descended into a similar hot spot. To the naked eye, Jupiter's hot spots appear as dark, cloud-free areas in the planet's equatorial belt, but at infrared wavelengths they are extremely bright, revealing the warm, deep atmosphere below the clouds.

High resolution images of Jupiter's hot spots such as these are key to understanding the role of storms and waves in Jupiter's atmosphere and to solving the mystery of Jupiter's elusive water.

Citizen scientist Brian Swift processed the images to enhance the color and contrast, with further processing by Tom Momary to map the JunoCam image to the Gemini data.

The international Gemini North Telescope is a 26.6 foot (8.1 meter) diameter optical/infrared telescope optimized for infrared observations, and is managed for the NSF by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).

More information about NASA citizen science can be found here.

Related Links
Juno at NASA
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Juno mission expands into the future
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 15, 2021
NASA has authorized a mission extension for its Juno spacecraft exploring Jupiter. The agency's most distant planetary orbiter will now continue its investigation of the solar system's largest planet through September 2025, or until the spacecraft's end of life. This expansion tasks Juno with becoming an explorer of the full Jovian system - Jupiter and its rings and moons - with multiple rendezvous planned for three of Jupiter's most intriguing Galilean moons: Ganymede, Europa, and Io. "Since its ... read more