Jupiter's famed 16,000km-wide tempest has been churning in the planet’s atmosphere for several centuries and is big enough that it could swallow the Earth whole.
Juno was launched in 2011 with the explicit mission of closely studying Jupiter and its moons. It finally reached the planet in 2016 after a gruelling five-year, 1.4 billion-mile trip.
Its findings reveal new insights into Jovian (Jupiter) meteorology and its links to the planet’s deeper interior.
While it has long been known that large storms and bands of rotating winds are common in Jupiter’s atmosphere, it’s unclear whether these storms are confined to the uppermost parts of the planet’s atmosphere or extend deeper into the planet.
In a pair of studies, researchers used microwave and gravity measurements, respectively, from the Juno spacecraft to gain more insight into Jupiter’s atmospheric vortices, including the GRS.
Juno’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument was used to investigate...