I believe the word you’re looking for is “breathtaking.”
NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter for the past year and a half, has returned a series of photographs of the giant planet that are no less than spectacular. The images, taken during the mission’s tenth trip around the planet and edited by two citizen scientists, include mesmerizing close-ups of the surface just like the one above.
The image was taken on Dec. 16, 2017 from nearly 8,300 miles above Jupiter’s clouds, and processed, or edited, by Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran. NASA routinely releases batches of photos taken by the Juno probe for the public to process and even asks for input about what the spacecraft should next capture.
“Jupiter completely fills the image, with only a hint of the terminator (where daylight fades to night) in the upper right corner, and no visible limb (the curved edge of the planet),” NASA wrote about the above shot.
Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral in August 2011 and entered a polar orbit around the gas giant on July 5, 2016. The $1.1 billion mission is intended to better understand how much water is in Jupiter’s atmosphere and to map its magnetic and gravity fields, among other objectives.
The probe fully orbits Jupiter once every 53 days and ventures as close as 2,600 miles to the planet’s surface. Its current mission is slated to continue through July, but scientists may propose to extend it at that time.
“Juno is providing spectacular results, and we are rewriting our ideas of how giant planets work,” Scott Bolton, a principal investigator on the Juno program, said in a statement last February.
The new images are available in the latest gallery on the Juno mission page, along with one time-lapsed video. Set aside a minute and a half and click on the play button below. The ride with Juno truly is awe-inspiring.