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PIA24820: Measuring the Gravity of Jupiter's Great Red Spot
During a flyby of Jupiter in July 2019, mission scientists conducted an experiment measuring minute velocity changes in the Juno spacecraft as a result in the gravity field near the Great Red Spot.
 Target Name:  Jupiter
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Juno 
 Spacecraft:  Juno
 Product Size:  1500 x 1125 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  SwRI 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA24820.tif (2.366 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA24820.jpg (98.7 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:

This representation depicts how NASA's Juno mission obtained gravity science data of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The Juno spacecraft flew twice over the crimson vortex in 2019 at low altitudes with the goal of picking up its subtle gravitational signal. The concentration of mass related to the powerful winds surrounding the Great Red Spot induced a minute Doppler shift in the spacecraft's radio signals that could be measured by a NASA's Deep Space Network tracking antenna on Earth.

With Juno traveling at about 130,000 mph (209,000 kph) over Jupiter's cloud deck, mission scientists were able to measure velocity changes as small 0.01 millimeter per second This enabled them to constrain the depth of the Great Red Spot to about 186 miles (300 kilometers) below the cloud tops.

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

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI

Image Addition Date:
2021-10-28