MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Contact: JPL/Guy Webster (818) 354-6278
Southwest Research Institute/Maria Martinez (210) 522-3305
IMAGE ADVISORY March 13, 2002
CHURNING WHIRLPOOL STARS IN ULTRAVIOLET JUPITER MOVIE
A dark patch of hydrocarbon haze, wider than Earth,
develops and swirls in a new movie clip from ultraviolet
images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft of Jupiter's upper
atmosphere, or stratosphere.
Observations in the ultraviolet part of the light
spectrum reveal features in Jupiter's stratosphere that are
transparent in the visible-light portion of the spectrum. One
surprise is the dark vortex whose birth and migration can be
seen during the 11-week span of the movie taken while Cassini
was approaching Jupiter in late 2000. Development of this
feature resembles development of ozone holes in Earth's
stratosphere in that both processes appear to occur only
within confined masses of high-altitude polar air. The
similarity may help scientists understand both processes
better.
The movie clip and a still image mapping all 360 degrees
of Jupiter in ultraviolet are available online from NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/jupiter
and from the Cassini imaging team, based at the Boulder,
Colo., campus of the Southwest Research Institute, at
http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/ .
A video file related to this release will air on NASA
Television March 13 and 14 during the NASA TV video file feed
scheduled for noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m., and midnight EST.
NASA TV is broadcast on GE-2, transponder 9C, C-Band, located
at 85 degrees West longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz.
Polarization is vertical and audio is monaural at 6.8 MHz. For
general questions about NASA video files, contact Fred Brown,
NASA TV, Washington, D.C. (202) 358-0713.
Cassini made its closest pass to Jupiter on Dec. 30,
2000, gaining a gravitational boost for reaching its main
destination, Saturn, in 2004. More information about the
mission is available at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . Cassini
is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency
and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the Cassini and
Galileo missions for NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena.
