NASA's Juno captures stunning image of Jupiter's swirling cloud formations

NASA's Juno has captured a stunning image of Jupiter's north temperate belt. The image portrays the swirling cloud formations on the gas giant.

The amazing NASA image was captured on February 7, at 8:42 am EST (1:42 pm GMT) when Juno was performing its eleventh close flyby of the gas giant.

The spacecraft was at a distance of 5,086 miles (8,186 kilometres) from the top of the clouds of the planet, which was at a latitude of 39.9 degrees.

The raw image taken by the spacecraft has been colour-enhanced by citizen scientist Kevin M Gill.

The wide-angle image portrays the northern region of Jupiter's cloud formations swirling over the planet's top and it's north temperate belt. Cyclonic movements of the storms can be seen in white, blue, and yellow colours.

Another amazing image recently taken by NASA had portrayed Earth and Moon in the same frame. The photo was captured by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

OSIRIS-REx had captured the image on January 17 with the help of its NavCam1 imager when it was at a distance of around 40 million miles (63.6 million km) and was flying at a speed of 19,000 miles per hour (8.5 kilometres per second).

The spacecraft was on its mission to analyse asteroid Bennu, which is a small and round near-Earth asteroid. Astronomers speculate that Bennu was formed 4.5 billion years ago.  

OSIRIS has been sent to orbit Bennu and collect samples of space rock with the help of its nitrogen gas thrusters. The samples will help astronomers to unveil the origins of life.