Nasa / Jupiter Poster

The Juno spacecraft is in a polar orbit around Jupiter, which means that it flies over the north pole, and then ducks under the south pole. These two active regions are of great interest to the scientific community because of the high concentrations of cyclones and other storms prevalent in the region. Those storms have slightly different mechanics than their kin on Earth for three reasons: The planet is a gas giant and an enormous one; the atmospheric pressure at its “surface” is almost three times more than that on Earth; and the atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, instead of the oxygen and nitrogen that surround our solid little planet. PHOTOGRAPH: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SWRI/MSSS/GABRIEL FISET