Spooky 'Face' On Jupiter Observed By NASA's Juno Mission

During its 54th close flyby of Jupiter on September 7, 2023, NASA's Juno spacecraft took this picture of Jet N7, an area in the extreme northern latitudes of the giant planet. Storms and turbulence can be seen sweeping over Jupiter's terminator, which separates the planet's day and night sides. Because of the low angle of sunlight, scientists have been able to better grasp the intricate topography of structures in this region and the processes occurring in Jupiter's atmosphere.

Jupiter's clouds in this image are conducive to pareidolia, a phenomena that frequently happens in views from Juno and allows observers to detect faces or other patterns in largely random patterns.

This picture was created by citizen scientist Vladimir Tarasov using unprocessed JunoCam instrument data. The Juno spacecraft was at a latitude of around 69 degrees north and 4,800 miles (nearly 7,700 km) above Jupiter's cloud tops when the raw image was obtained.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Vladimir Tarasov