【China Archives】

Jupiter looks like hell.

The China Archiveshuge planet in the middle of our solar system has giant Earth-sized storms, a powerful magnetic field, and extreme auroras, a series of new scientific studies published this week show.

The new findings come from data collected by NASA's Juno spacecraft, which has been studying Jupiter since it arrived in orbit around the huge world in July 2016.

SEE ALSO: A lava-filled crater larger than Lake Ontario lurks on Jupiter's moon Io

And wow, are there surprises from the information Juno has gathered.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"There is so much going on here that we didn’t expect that we have had to take a step back and begin to rethink of this as a whole new Jupiter," Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton said in a statement Thursday.

The photos taken by Juno reveal an entirely different planet than what we have seen before.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

For one thing, the daily weather report on Jupiter is far worse than we thought.

Although the planet's Great Red Spot has long been known, images recently beamed back from the spacecraft show the planet's south pole also swirls with massive cyclones. Each of the South Pole storms are up to about 600 miles across.

"It's a really stormy day on Jupiter," Juno team member Candy Hansen said during a news conference Thursday. "We've got these little white storm systems really just scattered across the entire south tropical zone."

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Via Giphy

Jupiter's clouds also grow to astonishingly high altitudes. Some photos taken this year show bright clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere and huge "cloud towers" that stretch up 30 miles and cast shadows on the clouds below, according to NASA.

"On Jupiter, clouds this high are almost certainly composed of water and/or ammonia ice, and they may be sources of lightning," NASA said of the cloud towers. "This is the first time so many cloud towers have been visible."

In comparison, the most powerful thunderstorms on Earth, which bubble up near the Equator, only reach about half these heights.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Juno also managed to take a particularly amazing video showing Jupiter's southern lights during its close pass with the planet in February.

The bright greens and reds dance above the huge planet's south pole spurred on by the planet's volcanic moon Io and its interaction with the large world's magnetic field.

It hasn't been all smooth sailing for Juno since it arrived at Jupiter.

NASA mission managers have kept Juno in a 53-day orbit around the huge planet instead of moving it down into a shorter orbit as planned because of issues with the spacecraft's engine.

Juno is safe in its current orbit, but it'll take a bit longer for scientists on Earth to transmit its data back home in this mode.

But it's probably worth the wait.

“On our next flyby on July 11, we will fly directly over one of the most iconic features in the entire solar system -- one that every school kid knows -- Jupiter’s Great Red Spot," Bolton added in the statement.

"If anybody is going to get to the bottom of what is going on below those mammoth swirling crimson cloud tops, it’s Juno and her cloud-piercing science instruments.”

---

Featured Video For You

---

---

• Social Good
• Shopping
• Digital Culture
• Science
• Deals
• Games
• Tech
• Life

• Best soundbar deal: Save $300 on the Sonos Arc
• The Archive by Melissa Chadburn
• This Is Not Beirut by Elias Khoury
• What’s the Use of Being a Boy: An Interview with Douglas A. Martin by Spencer Quong
• Amazon Big Spring Sale 2025: Best portable speaker deal
• 'Pokémon Concierge' review: The ultimate back
• What Our Contributors Are Reading This Summer by The Paris Review
• Twitter / X: Cheapest tier for gold checkmark drops from $1,000 to $200
• Today's Hurdle hints and answers for April 7, 2025
• Best Dyson deal: Get the Dyson Purifier Hot+Cool Gen 1 HP10 for 17% off

• Facebook's new iOS app will let you make and share your own AR filters
• Everything coming to Amazon Prime Video in November
• If you consider Hot Cheetos a vegetable, this is the meme for you
• What size is the iPhone 13 (as well as the 12, 11, and X)?
• Everyone could have won 'Squid Game' hopscotch, and that's just bad game design
• Adobe announces big updates to Photoshop, Illustrator, and more
• Smarter and smoother: Riding the new generation of e
• NASA's Mars rover is back in action after two weeks of silence
• Facebook's security head Alex Stamos to reportedly leave amid scandals
• Subtitles are the future. Sorry, caption haters.

• Best earbuds deal: Save 20% on Soundcore Sport X20 by Anker
• SpaceX charged with unlawfully firing employees critical of Elon Musk
• Renee Gladman’s Sentence Structures by The Paris Review
• The Devil’s Sting by Drew Bratcher
• Apple is reportedly still working on smart glasses of some kind
• The Edge of the Map by Colin Dickey
• Into the Narrow Home Below by Darcey Steinke
• Stalin’s Bodyguard: An Interview with Alex Halberstadt by John Jeremiah Sullivan
• Operation Rock Wallaby rains food down on wildlife hurt by bushfires
• This Is Not Beirut by Elias Khoury

• The Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones are on sale for $100 off
• Redux: A Aries, T Taurus, G Gemini by The Paris Review
• Wordle today: The answer and hints for January 4
• Redux: Thunder, They Told Her by The Paris Review
• Q&A with tendercare founder and CEO Shauna Sweeney
• How people are using Mickey Mouse in his post
• 5+ Apple products that will likely come out in 2024
• Gen Z loves fan
• Sony launches new flagship XM6 headphones: Order them now
• Cooking with D. H. Lawrence by Valerie Stivers