Oval storms dot the cloudscape. Approaching the pole, the organized turbulence of Jupiter’s belts and zones transitions into clusters of unorganized filamentary structures, streams of air that resemble giant tangled strings.
According to NASA, the image was taken on Dec. 11, 2016 at 9:44 a.m. PST (12:44 p.m. EST), from an altitude of about 32,400 miles (52,200 kilometers) above the planet’s beautiful cloud tops.
Juno spacecraft entered Jupiter’s orbit on July 4. On Dec. 11, 2016, as the Juno spacecraft performed its third close flyby of Jupiter 15,300 miles (24,600 kilometers) from the planet, it caught on camera the seventh of eight features forming a ‘string of pearls’ on Jupiter — massive counterclockwise rotating storms that appear as white ovals in the gas giant’s southern hemisphere.