Juno probe's JunoCam captured an image of the gas giant's "brown barge" feature during its most recent flyby. Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Jupiter's "brown barge" feature is the subject of a new photograph snapped by Juno's camera.

Like Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the brown barge is shaped by cyclone-like weather patterns in the gas giant's atmosphere. But unlike the red spot, which is round, the barge is longer and boxier.

The brown barge isn't always easy to pick out. Its colors often blend relatively seamlessly with its surroundings. The weather pattern is found in the North Equatorial Belt and South Equatorial Belt, both of which host darker clouds.

The new image was captured in September as Juno executed its 15th close flyby of Jupiter. The probe was 7,425 miles above Jupiter's tallest clouds when the photograph was taken.

The majority of JunoCam's raw images are made publicly available on NASA's website. Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created the new image by turning the original JunoCam photo 90 degrees to the right, or clockwise.

As the latest JunoCam image showcases, Jupiter is home to a variety of large atmospheric structures. In addition to the Great Red Spot, Jupiter is also home to the Great White Spot, as well as intense swirling activity near the gas giant's poles and equator. </s> During its 15th flyby of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured a rare image of a Jovian “brown barge.” It’s not nearly as impressive or picturesque as the Great Red Spot, but this big brown splotch is yet another reminder of many complex atmospheric processes happening on our Solar System’s largest planet.



Also known as brown ovals, brown barges are large cyclonic regions that typically form in Jupiter’s dark North Equatorial Belt or, less frequently, in the dark South Equatorial Belt, according to NASA. This particular storm is located in the southern belt.

Juno, which has been orbiting Jupiter since July 2016, took this picture on September 6, 2018 at a distance of 7,425 miles (11,950 km) from the planet’s cloud tops. The color-enhanced image was created by citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill, who used data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam, which is accessible to the public. NASA says it’s the first close-up view of this atmospheric phenomenon, providing an unprecedented glimpse of the detailed structures within the storm.

Brown ovals are typically hard to see, but this time we got lucky. As NASA describes in a press release, “They can often be difficult to detect visually because their color blends in with the dark surroundings. At other times, as with this image, the dark belt material recedes, creating a lighter-colored background against which the brown barge is more conspicuous.”



This atmospheric feature is reminiscent of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot—an anticyclonic storm that’s been continuously observed by astronomers for the past 350 years. Unlike the persistent Great Red Spot, however, brown barges don’t last very long. This storm will eventually run its course, dissipate, and likely go through a new cycle of reorganization. Most features within Jupiter’s belts and zones are short-lived, lasting anywhere from three to 15 years.

Juno has now completed 15 flybys of the gas giant. Its next close encounter will happen on October 29, 2018. The good news is that Juno is still less than halfway through its mission; the spacecraft is scheduled to make another 20 flybys, the final one occurring on July 30, 2021. Hopefully there will be plenty more brown splotches and other exotic phenomenon in the months and years to come. </s> NASA’s Juno spacecraft has beamed back an image of a long, brown oval known as a “brown barge” — an elusive atmospheric feature in Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt. Brown barges are cyclonic regions that usually lie within Jupiter’s dark North Equatorial Belt, although they are sometimes found in the similarly dark South Equatorial Belt as well. They can often be difficult to detect visually because their colour blends in with the dark surroundings.

At other times, the dark belt material recedes, creating a lighter-coloured background against which the brown barge is more conspicuous. Brown barges usually dissipate after the entire cloud belt undergoes an upheaval and reorganises itself. Juno is giving us the first glimpses of the detailed structure within such a barge, NASA said in a statement.

The image was taken earlier this month as the spacecraft performed its 15th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was 11,950 kilometers from the planet’s cloud tops, above a southern latitude of approximately 22 degrees. Citizen scientist Kevin M Gill created the image using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager, NASA said. </s> Brown barges are cyclonic regions that usually lie within Jupiter's dark North Equatorial Belt, although they are sometimes found in the similarly dark South Equatorial Belt as well. They can often be difficult to detect visually because their color blends in with the dark surroundings. At other times, as with this image, the dark belt material recedes, creating a lighter-colored background against which the brown barge is more conspicuous. Brown barges usually dissipate after the entire cloud belt undergoes an upheaval and reorganizes itself. Juno is giving us the first glimpses of the detailed structure within such a barge.

This image was taken at 6:26 p.m. PDT on Sept. 6, 2018 (9:26 p.m. EDT) as the spacecraft performed its 15th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was 7,425 miles (11,950 kilometers) from the planet's cloud tops, above a southern latitude of approximately 22 degrees.

Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created this image using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam imager. The image has been rotated 90 degrees to the right from the original image. </s> Astronomers using the first telescopes once believed Mars was crisscrossed with canals.

Sadly, they were wrong, but now Nasa has announced that it’s found a barge on Jupiter – the gas giant that’s our solar system’s biggest planet.

This doesn’t mean that we’ve discovered an actual boat, because Nasa refers to formations in the clouds of Jupiter as ‘brown barges’

It has just released new images of these natural wonders which were snapped by the Juno probe.

The barge is a type of storm which results in a dark cloud that stands out against the lighter background.

Nasa wrote: ‘Brown barges are cyclonic regions that usually lie within Jupiter’s dark North Equatorial Belt, although they are sometimes found in the similarly dark South Equatorial Belt as well.

‘They can often be difficult to detect visually because their color blends in with the dark surroundings. At other times, as with this image, the dark belt material recedes, creating a lighter-colored background against which the brown barge is more conspicuous.

‘Brown barges usually dissipate after the entire cloud belt undergoes an upheaval and reorganizes itself.

‘Juno is giving us the first glimpses of the detailed structure within such a barge.’ </s> NASA is learning some of the secrets of the largest planet in the solar system, revealing data Thursday from the space agency’s Juno mission to Jupiter.

Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun, is a gas giant with an atmosphere mainly composed of helium and hydrogen, and characterized by towering clouds of ammonia and turbulent storms, including one that has raged for hundreds of years and is larger than Earth, known as the Great Red Spot.

With the initial scientific information from Juno, researchers are realizing the planet is even more complex than scientists imagined.

The spacecraft’s camera, called the JunoCam, recorded images of Jupiter’s north and south poles that show colossus, swirling Earth-sized storms, knocking into each other as they rocket around the top and bottom of the planet. The storms covering the north pole are very different from those in the south, though.

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“We’re puzzled as to how they could be formed, how stable the configuration is, and why Jupiter’s north pole doesn’t look like the south pole,” Juno’s principal investigator Scott Bolton said in a briefing about the new data.

Bolton said it’s also unclear whether these are permanent storms at the poles.

“We’re questioning whether this is a dynamic system, and are we seeing just one stage, and over the next year, we’re going to watch it disappear, or is this a stable configuration and these storms are circulating around one another,” Bolton said.

Juno has also revealed new information about the planet’s irregular and lumpy magnetic field and its gaseous atmosphere.

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Researchers are hoping to learn more about the Giant Red Spot, too, one of the “most iconic features in the entire solar system.

“If anybody is going to get to the bottom of what is going on below those mammoth swirling crimson cloud tops, it’s Juno and her cloud-piercing science instruments,” Bolton predicted.

The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, and entered Jupiter’s orbit last summer on July 4.

The results from Thursday’s briefing were collected in a Juno fly-by last August when the craft was within 2,600 miles of Jupiter’s cloud tops, NASA said. </s> Monstrous cyclones are churning over Jupiter’s poles, until now a largely unexplored region.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft spotted the chaotic weather once it began skimming Jupiter’s cloud tops last year, surprising scientists who assumed the giant gas planet would be relatively boring and uniform down low.

“What we’re finding is anything but that is the truth. It’s very different, very complex,” Southwest Research Institute’s Scott Bolton, Juno’s chief scientist, said Thursday.

With dozens of cyclones hundreds of miles across — alongside unidentifiable weather systems stretching thousands of miles — the poles look nothing like Jupiter’s equatorial region, instantly recognizable by its stripes and Great Red Spot, a raging hurricane-like storm.

“That’s the Jupiter we’ve all known and grown to love,” Bolton told reporters. “And when you look from the pole, it looks totally different ... I don’t think anybody would have guessed this is Jupiter.”

He calls these first major findings — published Thursday — “Earth-shattering. Or should I say, Jupiter-shattering.”

Turning counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere just like on Earth, the cyclones are clearly clustered near the poles. The diameters of some of these cyclones stretch 1,400 km. Even bigger, though shapeless weather systems — spanning many thousands of miles — are present in both polar regions.

Launched in 2011 and orbiting Jupiter since last summer, Juno is providing the best close-up views ever of our solar system’s largest planet. Besides polar cyclones, Juno has detected an overwhelming abundance of ammonia in Jupiter’s deep atmosphere and a surprisingly strong magnetic field — roughly 10 times greater than Earth’s.

“The results from Juno’s initial close passes of Jupiter are changing our understanding of this gas giant,” the researchers wrote in one of two articles that appeared in the journal Science.

Jupiter’s poles appear dramatically different from neighbouring Saturn’s, according to the scientists, with nothing like the hexagon-shaped cloud system over Saturn’s north pole.

Researchers hope to compare Juno’s observations with those of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, in its final months orbiting Saturn. </s> (CN) – Early results from NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter reveal Earth-sized polar cyclones, a “fuzzy” core and a massive, irregularly shaped magnetic field – all of which challenge previously held theories on the solar system’s largest planet.

The findings are detailed in more than 40 papers discussing the surprising data from NASA’s mission to Jupiter, which reveal greater complexity and variability than scientists had expected.

“It was a long trip to get to Jupiter, but these first results already demonstrate it was well worth the journey,” said Diane Brown, Juno program executive at NASA.

Launched Aug. 5, 2011, from Florida’s Cape Canaveral, Juno made a gravity-assist flyby of Earth in October 2013 to generate enough speed to complete its roundabout 1.7-billion-mile voyage to Jupiter. The spacecraft successfully braked into a highly elliptical orbit around the gas giant in April 2016.

The information retrieved during Juno’s first data-collection pass on Aug. 27 – when the spacecraft flew within 2,600 miles of Jupiter’s swirling cloud tops – will likely fuel considerable speculation and analysis of the planet as scientists await data from subsequent passes.

“We knew going in that Jupiter would throw us some curves,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “But now that we are here we are finding that Jupiter can throw the heat, as well as knuckleballs and sliders. There is so much going on here that we didn’t expect that we have had to take a step back and begin to rethink of this as a whole new Jupiter.”

Among the surprising discoveries provided by Juno are Earth-sized swirling storms that cover both of Jupiter’s poles.

“We’re puzzled as to how they could be formed, how stable the configuration is, and why Jupiter’s north pole doesn’t look like the south pole,” Bolton said. “We’re questioning whether this is a dynamic system, and are we seeing just one stage and over the next year we’re going to watch it disappear, or is this a stable configuration and these storms are circulating around one another?”

Data from the Aug. 27, 2016, pass also show that Jupiter’s iconic belts and zones are unique and mysterious, with the belt near the equator spanning through the planet’s atmosphere, while the belts and zones at other latitudes seem to lead to other structures. The information suggests the ammonia in the gas giant’s atmosphere varies and continues to increase as far down as could be seen by Juno’s microwave radiometer, which is a few hundred miles.

While scientists knew Jupiter features the most intense magnetic field in the solar system, measurements of the planet’s magnetosphere indicate that it is even stronger than models predicted – and more irregular in shape. The data show that the magnetic field is about 10 times stronger than the strongest magnetic field found on Earth.

“Juno is giving us a view of the magnetic field close to Jupiter that we’ve never had before,” said Jack Connerney, Juno deputy principal investigator. “Already we see that the magnetic field looks lumpy; it is stronger in some places and weaker in others. This uneven distribution suggests that the field might be generated by dynamo action closer to the surface, above the layer of metallic hydrogen. Every flyby we execute gets us closer to determining where and how Jupiter’s dynamo works.”

Another question Juno is supposed to help answer is whether it has a core. Scientists have presented competing theories, which range from Jupiter having a small, compact core roughly the size of Earth, to the gas giant having formed without a core entirely. The data suggest the presence of a non-discrete, “fuzzy” core. Researchers say more information is needed to develop a precise understanding of the planet’s center.

As the scientific community digests the first results from Juno, further missions will likely add to the revelations described Thursday.

“Every 53 days, we go screaming by Jupiter, get doused by a fire hose of Jovian science, and there is always something new,” Bolton said. “On our next flyby on July 11, we will fly directly over one of the most iconic features in the entire solar system – one that every school kid knows – Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

“If anybody is going to get to the bottom of what is going on below those mammoth swirling crimson cloud tops, it’s Juno and her cloud-piercing science instruments.” </s> (CNN) Beneath its heavy cloud cover, Jupiter has been able to keep its secrets from astronomers. Now, first results from NASA's Juno mission are challenging researchers' beliefs about the gas giant.

The results were revealed during a media teleconference Thursday with NASA researchers and published in corresponding studies through the journal Science and Geophysical Research Letters

Juno launched in August 2011 but didn't arrive at Jupiter until July . The craft has been orbiting the planet and performing calculated flybys over the clouds. These happen every 53 days as Juno "screams by" Jupiter, going from the north to south pole in about two hours.

"The general theme of our discoveries is really how different Jupiter looked from how we expected," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "This is a close-up and personal look at Jupiter. We thought it was uniform inside and relatively boring. What we're finding is anything but that. It's very complex. Jupiter from the poles doesn't look anything like it does from our usual view."

During the flybys, observations and data showed Jupiter's previously unseen poles. Bright ovals at the poles were revealed to be gigantic cyclones spanning 870 miles. Juno was also able to probe the cloud cover and discover wells of ammonia that form giant and violent weather systems in the deep atmosphere.

The giant cyclones at the poles are also new to researchers. Further study could reveal whether these are like the Great Red Spot, which has been observable for at least 300 years, or more ephemeral.

"We're puzzled as to how they could be formed, how stable the configuration is and why Jupiter's north pole doesn't look like the south pole," Bolton said. "We're questioning whether this is a dynamic system, and are we seeing just one stage, and over the next year, we're going to watch it disappear, or is this a stable configuration and these storms are circulating around one another?"

"The idea of seeing those little cloud features full of ammonia and water ice, it's like it's snowing on Jupiter and we're seeing how it works," Bolton said. Or it could be hail, he said.

Juno revealed that Jupiter's magnetic field is 10 times stronger than the strongest magnetic field on Earth and and twice as strong as anticipated, exceeding researchers' expectations. The mission had an encounter with the planet's "bow shock," akin to a type of stationary shockwave, when exploring Jupiter's magnetosphere.

The researchers compared this bow shock to a Hadley cell on Earth, without the rain. A Hadley cell is the atmospheric circulation of air rising near the equator that creates hurricanes, jet streams, trade winds and rain belts.

"Juno is giving us a view of the magnetic field close to Jupiter that we've never had before," said Jack Connerney, Juno deputy principal investigator. "Already, we see that the magnetic field looks lumpy: It is stronger in some places and weaker in others. This uneven distribution suggests that the field might be generated by dynamo action closer to the surface, above the layer of metallic hydrogen. Every flyby we execute gets us closer to determining where and how Jupiter's dynamo works."

And Juno was able to measure Jupiter's gravitational field. Those data, combined with information to be gathered as Juno's mission continues, can help researchers determine the structure of Jupiter's atmosphere and answer the big question: Does the planet have a solid core?

Previous models have suggested this, but Juno's unique data could provide actual insight. If the planet has a solid core, it could change the belief that the gas giant is largely composed of hydrogen and helium.

Even though Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, astronomers don't know much about its origin. The Juno mission was designed to collect data and observations that will reveal the origin and evolution of the gas giant. Its other objectives include mapping Jupiter's gravitational and magnetic fields, observing auroras, measuring the amount of water and ammonia in its atmosphere and finding evidence of a solid core.

The planet's cloudy atmosphere has contributed greatly to obscuring general knowledge. Juno was designed to dip below those clouds to look at the planet underneath. This will also help astronomers determine finer points about Jupiter's composition and how much of it is water.

Jupiter was most likely the first planet to form in the solar system and contains some of the same ingredients of the collapsing nebula that formed the system. Knowing more about Jupiter can provide greater insight about its beginnings.

"If anybody is going to get to the bottom of what is going on below those mammoth swirling crimson cloud tops, it's Juno and her cloud-piercing science instruments," Bolton said.
JunoCam captures an image of Jupiter's "brown barge", a cyclone-like shape that has weather patterns in Jupiter's atmosphere.