NASA Just Released A Breathtaking Video Of Jupiter's Clouds In Motion Recorded By A $1 Billion Spacecraft

Each planet in the Solar System has something very special about it, from the rings of the planet Saturn to the fiery inferno of Venus. Jupiter, though, holds a special place in our hearts for its stupendously awesome clouds. These have been revealed in spectacular fashion by NASA’s Juno mission recently.

The spacecraft, which entered orbit around the gas giant in July 2016, has been flying over its poles to snap some rather amazing images. And if you stitch some of those images together, you can actually create a time-lapse video of a specific region of the planet. That’s what citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt has done, with this wonderful animation below highlighting the movement of clouds on the planet.

The region on show here is about four times greater than Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, and big enough to fit several Earths inside it. So you’re seeing clouds on Jupiter move in a rather massive manner. That’s pretty awesome.

The animation is eight seconds long and was created by digitally extrapolating between two images that were taken nine minutes apart. In total, the video aims to replicate how parts of the famous bands of clouds on Jupiter are expected to move over a period of about 29 hours.

"Abstractly, the result appears something like a psychedelic paisley dream," said NASA. "Scientifically, however, the computer animation shows that circular storms tend to swirl, while bands and zones appear to flow."