Voyager 1 Jupiter cloud timelapse animation

Credit: NASA / JPL / Björn Jónsson / Ian Regan

Every second in this movie corresponds to 1 Jupiter day or about 10 Earth hours. This movie began as a 16-frame animation of Voyager 1 images of Jupiter. Each of the 16 images was composed by Björn Jónsson from three Voyager frames taken through orange, green, and blue filters, which he reprojected into a cylindrical map, aligned, and then projected back into the slightly squashed spherical shape of Jupiter. (This reprojection step is necessary because around two minutes elapsed between each of the component images, which, because of Jupiter's fast rotation, would result in color ghosting if they were simply overlaid.) Jónsson selected sets of images featuring the Great Red Spot near the center of Jupiter's disk, one per Jupiter day, and reprojected them to maintain a constant position for the Spot. By holding the GRS still he highlights the motions of the clouds that happen from Jupiter day to Jupiter day.

Ian Regan took Jónsson's 16-frame animation (representing 16 Jupiter days or about 7 Earth days) and "tweened" it, using software to compute frames to fill in the time between each of the original 16 images. The result is a smooth animation of the motion of Jupiter's clouds.

Jupiter may appear slightly "washed out." Jónsson has attempted to reconstruct Jupiter's color as it would actually appear to the human eye, without exaggerating the colors. However, it should be noted that the Voyager camera systems were not sensitive to light in red wavelengths (the longest wavelength they could detect is in a region we'd call "orange"). Since Jupiter is colorful in red wavelengths, attempting to produce "true color" images from Voyager data results in slightly less colorful views than we can see with modern CCDs or our own eyes.

[valentinotera]

50 years later, still the best Jupiter imaging.

[jrno]

it's hard to imagine a a massive gas giant is doing this out there in deep space. imagine seeing it in person.

[SemiEssessi]

its good to know these videos are tweening between frames every second. i'd always thought each /frame/ was a jupiter day, so now i know these clouds and patterns move even faster that I thought before :)

[DesertRatExploration]

This video is the best way to understand Coriolis Force. It gives you idea of weather patterns on Earth work just at a huger / gas planet scale.

[TCBYEAHCUZ]

I can't wait for the day we've got hours long of these videos thanks to geosynchronous satellites in orbit around jupiter.

[MikeViLLaZ]

more activity on the equator and no mater how the clouds shift the big red spot seems to remain the same like a roller on a conveyor belt

[Bananazz]

Always wanted to see Jupiter's clouds in action!!! 

[haggidubious]

This is great! Really get a sense of what those clouds are doing. So damn turbulent!

[YeenMage]

Reminds me of watercolor dissolving in water on its own through Brownian motion.

I'm not a hippie or anything like that, but yeah, nature can produce it's own art-and-canvas without humans. Sometimes, they are even more spectacular - as in the case of Juno's mission.

[kvltizt]

We are the universe witnessing itself.

[oTamusima]

that looks like Bernoulli's Principle to me. this is the video i was looking for to help show the comparison. thank you!

[emanuelgoitiagutierrez]

Pues esas nuves si que van a velocidad alta. Me encanta ❤

[jecsquish]

There has to be formations underneath doing this

[chickennuggets]

i assume the coriolis effect is wild on jupiter

[francoisbeauchamp]

imagine humans one day lacking some elements on earth, that on jupiter's atmosphere can be found in enormous quantities... maybe one day mining and gas scooping will be true ! :)

[davincent]

I wonder if a still shot from this was used in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, ironically about the fictional (SPOILER) Voyager 6?

[PaleBlueDot]

I want to know how this was tooken from the same angle since voyager 1 just flew by it and with how strong jupiters gravity is it would be mpving incredibly fast so how is this possible

[marcw]

Almost like the planet it self is alive

[eejay]

Voyager 2 Made That Sequence Of Jupiters High Winds ya know?

[Astronomynatureandmusic]

Do I correctly understand: Voyager took 1 (x3) photo every 10 hours, so it would have the same side of Jupiter showing - and it did so for 16 Jupiter days?