Jupiter's North Pole 'Like Nothing We've Seen Before'

The NASA spacecraft Juno has sent the first pictures back to Earth of Jupiter's north pole, leaving scientists stunned.

The spacecraft made its first flypast of the planet with its instruments switched on during 27 August.

Juno came within 2,500 miles of the mysterious planet's swirling clouds.

Experts are still analysing the six megabytes of data collected during a six-hour trip between the north and south poles.

But already, they have spotted a few things that have them excited.

Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said: "First glimpse of Jupiter's north pole, and it looks like nothing we have seen or imagined before.

"It's bluer in color up there than other parts of the planet, and there are a lot of storms. 

"There is no sign of the latitudinal bands or zone and belts that we are used to - this image is hardly recognisable as Jupiter.

"We're seeing signs that the clouds have shadows, possibly indicating that the clouds are at a higher altitude than other features."

Among the other things Juno has been collecting are recordings of ghostly-sounding transmissions coming from above the planet.

These sounds, collected as part of Juno's radio plasma wave experiment, have been known about since the 1950s but have never been able to be analysed so closely.

One of the most interesting findings was something that the JunoCam didn't see - while Saturn has a hexagon at the north pole, Mr Bolton said there was nothing on Jupiter like that.

"The largest planet in our solar system is truly unique," he added. "We have 36 more flybys to study just how unique it really is."

The Juno spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in August, 2011, and arrived at Jupiter in July this year.

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