There’s a fresh flowering of photos from NASA’s Juno orbiter, and this time they’re highlighting Jupiter’s most famous feature, the Great Red Spot.
The latest load comes from Juno’s close encounter with the giant planet on April 1. It’s known as Perijove 12, because it’s the 12th close-up photo opportunity for the probe’s science mission.
Juno’s main mission is to characterize Jupiter’s magnetic field, gravity field and internal composition, but a camera was added to the scientific payload primarily for outreach purposes. After every perijove session, the raw imagery data is sent back to Earth for professional and amateur astronomers to process.
The images are posted to the Juno mission’s website, and to social-media accounts and Flickr photostreams as well.
