Revealing more detail than the very best groundbased telescopic photographs, this Voyager 1 image of Jupiter taken December 10 from 52 million miles shows the Great Red Spot (lower right) surrounded by a turbulent atmosphere. The entire visible surface of Jupiter is made up of multiple layers of clouds, composed primarily of ammonia ice crystals colored by small amounts of materials of unknown composition. Near the center is a bright convective cloud and an associated plume which has been swept westward (to the left) by local currents in the planet's equatorial wind system. This same atmospheric feature was seen prominently, in the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft pictures of Jupiter taken four and five years ago this month. Below and to .the left of the Great Red Spot is a white oval cloud, one of three which formed nearly 40 years ago in the south temperate region. Largest of all of the planets, Jupiter's volume could contain more than 1200 Earths. Voyager 1 will fly past Jupiter on March 5, 1979, studying the planet and five of its 13 moons, and continue on to Saturn. An identical spacecraft, Voyager 2, arrives at Jupiter on July 9,1979, and will proceed to Saturn, and possibly Uranus. Both were launched in 1977. Among 11 science instruments, each spacecraft is equipped with two slow-scan TV cameras. This picture was taken with a camera equipped with a 1500 millimeter focal-length telescope.
