The camera on NASA’s Juno orbiter, JunoCam, produces superb images of the polar regions on every orbit.  This links at the bottom of this page give several accounts of the results, usually in interim form pending publication in the scientific journals.  Some other short accounts are in our EPSC abstracts on the pages entitled ‘Amateur contributions to planetary science’.

As the vision for JunoCam is for public participation in a planetary mission, John Rogers and Gerald Eichstaedt have had the privilege of working with the NASA JunoCam team (led by Dr Candy Hansen) in processing and analysing these images throughout the mission. This work used polar projection maps produced by GE.  The original images and GE’s processed versions are available on the JunoCam web site (https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam), and annotated images and maps at each perijove, including polar views that include the CPCs, are on the ‘Results from Juno’ pages on this BAA web site. 

The JunoCam and JIRAM instruments discovered the polar polygons of cyclones, early in the mission.  The JunoCam results on these have been published as follows:

Adriani A, Mura A, Orton G, Hansen C, Altieri F, Moriconi ML, Rogers J, Eichstädt G, et al. (2018 March 8)  ‘Clusters of Cyclones Encircling Jupiter’s Poles.’  Nature 555, 216-219.

F. Tabataba-Vakili, J.H. Rogers, G. Eichstädt, G.S. Orton, C.J. Hansen, T.W. Momary, J.A. Sinclair, R.S. Giles, M.A. Caplinger, M.A. Ravine, S.J. Bolton.  ‘Long-term tracking of circumpolar cyclones on Jupiter from polar observations with JunoCam.’ Icarus 335, paper 113405  (2020 Jan.1; online 2019).

(Also see our reports for the EPSC meetings, under “Amateur-professional collaborations…” on this web site.)

More recently, we have published the first analysis of flow patterns between ~64-80 deg.S, combining information from JunoCam and amateur polar maps, as follows:

J.H. Rogers, G. Eichstädt, C.J. Hansen, G.S. Orton, T. Momary, A. Casely, G. Adamoli, M. Jacquesson, R. Bullen, D. Peach, T. Olivetti, S. Brueshaber, M. Ravine, S. Bolton. ‘Flow patterns of Jupiter’s south polar region.’  Icarus 372, paper 114742 (2022 Jan.; online, 2021 Nov.).  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114742.

The original south polar projection maps used in this study, up to PJ26 in 2020, have been posted on the following page on this web site:  “Results from Juno: Jupiter’s polar regions / Maps of Jupiter’s south polar region (JunoCam and ground-based)” – Direct link:  https://britastro.org/node/25715.