Nasa’s Juno Spacecraft captures Frosted Cupcake like clouds on Jupiter

The photographs were especially taken during JunoCam's 43rd close Jupiter flyby at a nominal height of 13,536.3 kilometres above the gas giant's cloud tops. When examined in the 890-nanometer methane absorption band, the brighter cloud tops you perceive correspond to their higher height.

The "frosted cupcake" storms of Jupiter are seen in all their splendour in new 3D representations produced by a group of amateur scientists using Juno data. The photographs were especially taken during JunoCam's 43rd close Jupiter flyby at a nominal height of 13,536.3 kilometres above the gas giant's cloud tops. When examined in the 890-nanometer methane absorption band, the brighter cloud tops you perceive correspond to their higher height. A calibration that converts these illumination scapes into accurate models of physical cloud-top elevation models is now being developed by NASA's Juno scientists. The author proposed their research findings at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 in Granada, Spain, this past week.

Jupiter frequently seems smooth and marble-like in images of the planet's swirling storm clouds. These pictures reveal that the ferocious clouds have peaks and valleys like a rocky mountain range. Shadows in the upper atmosphere get the most intense sunlight, but as it descends, more and more of it is absorbed.

Jupiter is 11 times wider than Earth, with a radius of 69,911 kilometres. By far the largest planet in our Solar System, it has equally enormous clouds. According to earlier research by Juno, some of these clouds reach as far as 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) into the globe. That is a greater distance than the US's northern and southern boundaries. The planet's famous Great Red Spot, the tremendous storm in the Solar System, is likewise enormous, with a diameter of 6,000 kilometres (nearly 10,000 miles) and a depth of up to 500 kilometres (310 miles).