The image has garnered more than a million likes on Instagram.
US space agency NASA shared a stunning image of our solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter, on Sunday. On Instagram, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported that the Juno spacecraft took the photo as it completed its 43rd flyby of Jupiter over the planet’s north pole in July 2022.
“The JunoCam instrument captured the amazing view of vortices, spiraling hurricane-like wind patterns, near Jupiter’s north pole,” the space agency said.
Check it out below:
The image shows storms on Jupiter in shades of blue and white. They appear in large swirling patterns with wavy patterns emerging between the circles.
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Shared just a few hours ago, the image has already garnered more than a million likes. Internet users flooded the comments section with love and fire emojis. While some users called the image “awesome”, others called it “beautiful”.
One user compared the image of Jupiter to Vincent van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night” painting and asked: “The starry night… is that you.” Another said: “This is literally so awesome.”
A third commented: “Jupiter was painted by Van Gogh,” while a fourth added: “Absolutely amazing!”
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In the caption, NASA stated that citizen scientist Brian Swift created the enhanced color and contrast view of the vortices using raw image data from JunoCam. At the time the raw image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 25,100 kilometers above Jupiter’s clouds, the space agency reported.
He also added that powerful storms on Jupiter can be more than 50 kilometers high and hundreds of miles across. “Without a solid surface to slow them down, storms can last for years and have winds of up to 335 miles per hour (539 kilometers per hour),” the post’s headline read.