| Mosaic
of Jupiter's northern hemisphere between 10 and 50 degrees latitude. Jupiter's
atmospheric circulation is dominated by alternating eastward and westward
jets from equatorial to polar latitudes. The direction and speed of these
jets in part determine the color and texture of the clouds seen in this
mosaic. Also visible are several other common Jovian cloud features, including
large white ovals, bright spots, dark spots, interacting vortices, and turbulent
chaotic systems. The north-south dimension of each of the two interacting
vortices in the upper half of the mosaic is about 3500 kilometers. This
mosaic combines the violet (410 nanometers) and near infrared continuum
(756 nanometers) filter images to create a mosaic similar to how Jupiter
would appear to human eyes. Differences in coloration are due to the composition
and abundance of trace chemicals in Jupiter's atmosphere. |
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North
is at the top. The images are projected on a sphere, with features being
foreshortened towards the north. The smallest resolved features are tens
of kilometers in size. These images were taken on April 3, 1997, at a range
of 1.4 million kilometers by the Solid State Imaging system (CCD) on NASA's
Galileo spacecraft. |
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