Jupiter looks very Earth-y in new NASA Juno image
Jupiter has the blues in an eye-opening NASA image showing the gas giant's south pole.
Jupiter isn't the most colorful spot in the solar system. It looks like a watercolor swirl of white, orange, brown, yellow and bit of dull red like we see in the Great Red Spot.
A NASA image released Friday shows Jupiter looking very deep blue, a color we more strongly associate with our own planet.
This look at Jupiter's south pole has been processed to show the planet's details.
Jupiter isn't actually hanging out in space looking like an Earth doppelganger. The image, which comes from NASA's Juno spacecraft, has been processed to help make the details pop out.
NASA titled the image "Jovian 'Twilight Zone'" and says it was part of "an experiment to capture the best results for illuminated parts of Jupiter's polar region."
Juno captured the view on Feb. 7 with an eye toward getting a good look at the area of the planet where day and night meet.
It's challenging to try to catch both the dark parts of Jupiter and the brighter sun-lit regions at the same time. NASA says it made adjustments to the spacecraft's camera so it would behave like a human portrait photographer and snap multiple takes using different exposures.
Citizen-scientist Gerald Eichstädt then reworked the raw Juno image to really make it pop. Eichstädt has helped deliver some stunning views of the gas giant, including a look at a wild storm and an excellent view of the famous Great Red Spot.
Juno launched in 2011 and arrived at Jupiter in mid-2016. NASA makes the spacecraft's images available to the public through its online JunoCam gallery.
