NASA has continued its trend of releasing ever more impressive images of Jupiter with this stunning overview of the planet’s tempestuous weather.
Taken by the Juno spacecraft the image reveals the sheer breadth of colours that make up the gas giant’s cloud belts and gives some indication of the frightful speeds at which they’re moving.
With storms travelling at speeds of up to 355mph, Jupiter’s weather means that it is not a place you would want to visit for long.
In fact for now, none of us would ever be able to get this close to the planet thanks to its lethal radiation belt that extends for millions of miles.
Taken on the 16th December, 2017, the image also conveys the sheer size of the planet.
Each pixel in this image represents 5.6 miles.
The gas giant is 300 times more massive than our planet and five times farther from the sun. Jupiter years are twelve times longer than earth’s, but the planet rotates so fast that its days are only 10 hours long.
If it had been just 80 times larger Jupiter would have become a star with its very own solar system. Instead it remains a giant among our planets, indeed minus the sun, Jupiter contains more than twice the amount of material within everything else in our solar system - all the planets, moons, asteroids and comets.
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