                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                               2018 December 14
                                      [2]
                             Swimming on Jupiter
  Image Credit: NASA [3] , JPL-Caltech [4] , SwRI [5] , MSSS [6] ; Processing:
                          Brian Swift, Sean Doran [7]

Explanation: On October 29, the Juno spacecraft once again dove near the
turbulent Jovian cloud tops. Its 16th orbital closest approach or perijove
passage [8] , brought Juno within 3,500 kilometers of the Solar System's
largest planetary atmosphere. These frames, recorded by JunoCam [9] while the
spacecraft cruised 20 - 50 thousand kilometers above the planet's middle
southern latitudes, seem to follow a swirling cloud shaped remarkably like a
dolphin. Swimming along Jupiter's darker [10] South South Temperate Belt, this
dolphin is itself planet-sized though, some thousands of kilometers across.
Juno's next perijove [11] passage will be December 21.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [23] (MTU [24] ) & Jerry Bonnell [25]
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1812/2207_pia22694_960.gif
  [3] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [4] http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
  [5] http://www.swri.org/
  [6] http://www.msss.com/
  [7] https://twitter.com/_TheSeaning
  [8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsGW2JZrMnY
  [9] https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/news/ dolphin_in_the_Jovian_clouds
  [10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Atmosphere_of_Jupiter#Specific_bands
  [11] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/
nasas-juno-mission-halfway-to-jupiter-science
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  [25] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
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