Voyager 1 took this photo of the planet Jupiter on January 24, while still
more than 25 million miles (40 million kilometers) away. As the spacecraft draws
closer to the planet (about 1 million kilometers a day) more details are
emerging in the turbulent clouds. The Great Red Spot shows prominently below
center, surrounded by what scientists call a remarkably complex region of the
giant planet's atmosphere. An elongated yellow cloud within the Great Red Spot
is swirling around the spot's interior boundary in a counterclockwise direction
with a period of a little less than six days, confirming the whirlpool-like
circulation that astronomers have suspected from ground-based photographs.
Ganymede, Jupiter's largest satellite, can be seen to the lower left of the
planet. Ganymede is a planet-sized body larger than Mercury. This color photo
was assembled at Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Image Processing Lab from three
black and white images taken through filters.
