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PIA24041: When Jupiter's Clouds Pop Up
In the center of this JunoCam image, small, bright pop-up clouds seen rise above the surrounding features. Clouds like these are thought to be the tops of violent thunderstorms responsible for shallow lighting.
 Target Name:  Jupiter
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Juno 
 Spacecraft:  Juno
 Instrument:  JunoCam 
 Product Size:  3386 x 2053 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  SwRI 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA24041.tif (16.63 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA24041.jpg (584.3 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

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This detailed, color-enhanced JunoCam image by NASA's Juno spacecraft reveals a complex topography in the cloud tops of Jupiter's northern mid-latitude region. Small, bright "pop-up" clouds in the center of the image rise above the surrounding features, standing out at the tops and edges of the swirling patterns; the darker areas nearby reveal greater depth. Clouds like these are thought to be the tops of the violent thunderstorms at the heart of the "shallow lighting" — high-altitude electrical storms originating where it is too cold for liquid-water clouds to exist — recently discovered by the Juno mission.

JunoCam's raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at
https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing.

More information about Juno is at http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill © CC BY

Image Addition Date:
2020-08-05