Inside Jupiter

NASA’s Juno spacecraft is mapping the history of our Solar System in our giant neighbor.

Juno is a true mission of exploration and discovery. The data from the spacecraft have been paradigm-shifting for our understanding of giant planets, providing a revolutionary new view of Jupiter, both challenging our theories and presenting beauty that is almost beyond belief. The images returned from Juno are breathtaking, bridging art and science.

Although Juno represents many firsts for NASA, one of the most interesting is how the spacecraft’s camera, JunoCam, is set up to involve the public in the mission. The Juno team has chosen to make all of Juno’s raw, unprocessed imaging data available to the public via the mission’s website. This decision not only allows, but rather requires, that all of the pictures of Jupiter taken by Juno are essentially created by the public, because there is no official JunoCam science team. The citizen scientists involved are not modifying NASA images, they are creating the images themselves. They are literally the first humans to see Juno’s discoveries. Jupiter’s giant polar cyclones, the first high-resolution close-up of the shrinking Great Red Spot, the high-altitude pop-up clouds discovered near the edges of the planet’s swirling storms—these are just a few of the discoveries made because of imagery created by citizen scientists. And citizen artists are also involved, creating artwork inspired by Juno’s exploration of Jupiter.Source:American scientist