Voyager 1 took this photo of the planet Jupiter on Jan. 24, while still more than 25 million miles (40 million kilometers) away. As the spacecraft draws closer to the planet (about 1 million kilometers a day) are emerging more details in the turbulent clouds. The Great Red Spot shows prominently below center, surrounded by what scientists call a remarkable complex region of the giant planet's atmosphere. An elongated yellow cloud within the Great Red Spot is swirling around the spot's interior boundary in a counterclockwise direction with a period of a little less than six days, confirming the whirlpool-like circulation that astronomers have suspected from ground-based photographs. Ganymede, Jupiter's largest satellite, can be seen to the lower left of the planet. Ganymede is a planet-sized body larger than Mercury. This black and white image was taken through a blue filter. The Voyagers are managed for NASA's Office of Space Science by Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
