Jupiter passed behind the Sun a week ago, so it’s still lost in the solar glare. By next month, early risers will start seeing brilliant Jupiter in the east before dawn, as a morning star. But when we think of that giant planet, people who care about astronomy think of its strange moon Europa, which is probably the likeliest place for life in the known universe.
Europa
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— Jupiter’s Colourful Palette
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals the intricate, detailed beauty of Jupiter’s clouds in this new image taken on 27 June 2019 by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, when the planet was 644 million kilometres from Earth — its closest distance this year. The image features the planet’s trademark Great Red Spot and a more intense colour palette in the clouds swirling in the planet’s turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. The observations of Jupiter form part of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) programme.
NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) / ESA/Hubble
