3 Cosmic Images from 2017: No. 3

One year, so much science. Here's the third of three spectacular, but less widely seen images from the near and far universe

By Caleb A. Scharf on December 21, 2017

3 Cosmic Images from 2017: No. 3 — *Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS, Gerald Eichstädt*

It may have existed for more than 4 centuries, it's been studied in detail for over 180 years, and it never fails to elicit a sense of awe.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a vast, rotating zone of high pressure - a little over 16,000 kilometers wide today, it could handily encompass the entire Earth, with room to spare. We've seen it up pretty close (by cosmic standards) before, with the Galileo mission, and can watch it in good detail even from the Earth.

But NASA's Juno mission has got us closer than ever, delivering this stunning image from a mere 9,000 kilometers above the spot's raised cloud tops.

As with most of Juno's imagery, the data is made available for anyone to examine and to apply the tools of image enhancement to. Colors are exaggerated, contrasts are tweaked to reveal new features. But what a statement about where our species has got to - a place where, should we choose, our entertainment is to be found in artistic reinterpretation of data from an alien, gas giant world that is hundreds of millions of kilometers away.

Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS, Gerald Eichstädt

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Caleb A. Scharf

Dr. Caleb A. Scharf is Director of Astrobiology at Columbia University,and has an international reputation as a research astrophysicist, and asa lecturer to college and public audiences. The UK's Guardian newspaperhas listed his blog Life, Unbounded, as one of their "hottest scienceblogs," while an editor at Seed Magazine called it "phenomenal.Informed, fresh, and thoughtful." Scharf is author and co-author of morethan 100 scientific research articles in astronomy and astrophysics. Hiswork has been featured in publications such as New Scientist, ScientificAmerican, Science News, Cosmos Magazine, Physics Today, and NationalGeographic, as well as online at sites like Space.com and Physorg.com.His textbook for undergraduate and graduate students, Extrasolar Planetsand Astrobiology, won the 2012 Chambliss Prize of the AAS. Hisarticles and reviews have appeared in such prestigious publications asScience, Nature, The Astrophysical Journal, and Monthly Notices of theRoyal Astronomical Society.Dr. Scharf is a regular keynote speaker at academic meetings, such asfor the American Physical Society, museums, and both public and privatevenues, including the American Museum of Natural History, the RubinMuseum of Art in New York. He has been a guest on Krulwich on Science atNPR, William Shatner's "Weird or What?" and has served as a consultantto editors and producers at National Geographic Magazine, The ScienceChannel, The Discovery Channel, and The New York Times.