3-D View Of Jupiter's Clouds
Every day is a cloudy day
on Jupiter, the Solar System's reigning
gas giant.
This 3-dimensional visualization presents a simplified model view from
between Jovian cloud decks based on imaging and spectral data recorded
by the Galileo spacecraft.
The separation between
the cloud layers
and the height variations have
been exaggerated.
The upper cloud layer is haze a few tens of miles thick.
Heights in the lower cloud layers have been color coded;
light bluish clouds are high and thin,
reddish clouds are low, and white clouds are high and thick.
Streaks in the lower layer suggestively lead to a dark blue area,
a relatively clear, dry region
similar to the site where
Galileo's atmospheric probe
made the first entry into a gas giant planet's atmosphere
on December 7th, 1995.