APOD: 2025 March 9 – Cyclones at Jupiters North Pole

Good morning, Rallypoint, and welcome to this edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for March 9, 2025.

This image (produced in 2018) was taken by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) onboard the Juno spacecraft in orbit around the planet Jupiter. We see eight separate cyclones around a larger storm slightly offset from the geographic north pole. Other imagery from the south pole show only five cyclones. Contrast that with Saturn, where there is only one cyclone at either pole. I guess that's why some facts remain mysteries.

The JIRAM is the first Italian image spectrometer sent to Jupiter. Its mission is to probe the upper layers of Jupiter’s atmosphere down to pressures of 5-7 bars at infrared wavelengths between 2-5 μm (micrometers).