Planetary Spectacles of Jupiter and Saturn

Stunning images of Saturn and Jupiter captured by spacecraft, showcasing their striking atmospheres, rings, and features like the Great Red Spot.

Illustration of Saturn

Beautiful Saturn as Seen by Cassini

This striking view of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and turbulent southern hemisphere was captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft as it performed a close pass of the gas giant planet. Juno took the three images used to produce this color-enhanced view on Feb. 12, 2019, between 9 59 a.m. PST (12 59 p.m. EST) and 10 39 p.m. PST (1 39 p.m. EST), as the spacecraft performed its 17th science pass of Jupiter. At the time the images were taken, the spacecraft was between 16,700 miles (26,900 kilometers) and 59,300 miles (95,400 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops, above a southern latitude spanning from about 40 to 74 degrees.

The Cassini spacecraft captured this natural color view of Saturn almost a month after the planet's August 2009 equinox. The shadow cast on the planet by the rings remains narrow.

Moons on the Move

This processed color image of Jupiter was produced in 1990 by the U.S. Geological Survey from a Voyager image captured in 1979. Zones of light-colored, ascending clouds alternate with bands of dark, descending clouds.

Jupiter and it's largest satellite, Io. Cassini Spacecraft.

Saturn Approach - Full Disk

Illustration of Saturn

Digital Illustration of Planet Jupiter

Saturn in Color

Dreamy colors ranging from pale rose to butterscotch to sapphire give this utterly inhospitable gas planet a romantic appeal. Shadows of the rings caress the northern latitudes whose blue color is presumed to be a seasonal effect

Jupiter - Southeast of Great Red Spot

Spots on Saturn

our sun system 3d rendering of a our sun system Copyright: xZoonar.com/magannx 9740647

Hubble Views Ancient Storm in the Atmosphere of Jupiter - Full Disk

Artist's impression of a hot Neptune or Hoptune.

Dione and Saturn

Jupiter planet viewed from Voyager

Jupiter, computer artwork.

Illustration of Uranus

Jupiter casts a baleful eye toward the moon Ganymede in this enhanced-contrast image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

A large, bright and complex convective storm that appeared in Saturn's southern hemisphere in mid-September 2004 was the key in solving a long-standing mystery about the ringed planet. Saturn's atmosphere and its rings are shown here in a false color composite made from Cassini images taken in near infrared light through filters that sense different amounts of methane gas. Portions of the atmosphere with a large abundance of methane above the clouds are red, indicating clouds that are deep in the atmosphere. Grey indicates high clouds, and brown indicates clouds at intermediate altitudes. The rings are bright blue because there is no methane gas between the ring particles and the camera. The complex feature with arms and secondary extensions just above and to the right of center is called the Dragon Storm. It lies in a region of the southern hemisphere referred to as storm alley by imaging scientists because of the high level of storm activity observed there by Cassini in the last year

This photo, taken on Jan. 9, 1979 by NASA's Voyager 1, is dominated by the Great Red Spot. Swirling, storm-like features possibly associated with wind shear can be seen both to the left and above the Red Spot.

Citizen scientist Thomas Thomopoulos created this enhanced-color image using raw data from the JunoCam instrument. At the time the raw image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops, at a latitude of about 55 degrees south, and 15 times closer than Ganymede, which orbits about 666,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) away from Jupiter. An observer at Jupiter's cloud tops within the oval shadow would experience a total eclipse of the Sun. Total eclipses are more common on Jupiter than Earth for several reasons. Jupiter has four major moons (Galilean satellites) that often pass between Jupiter and the Sun in seven days, Ganymede transits once; Europa, twice; and Io, four times. And since Jupiter's moons orbit in a plane close to Jupiter's orbital plane, the moon shadows are often cast upon the planet. JunoCam captured this image from very close to Jupiter, making Ganymede's shadow appear especially large.

This full-disc image of Jupiter was taken on 21 April 2014 with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). -- Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot -- a swirling anti-cyclonic storm larger than Earth -- has shrunk to its smallest size ever measured. According to Amy Simon of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, recent NASA Hubble Space Telescope observations confirm the Great Red Spot now is approximately 10,250 miles across. Astronomers have followed this downsizing since the 1930s. Historic observations as far back as the late 1800s gauged the storm to be as large as 25,500 miles on its long axis. NASA Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flybys of Jupiter in 1979 measured it to be 14,500 miles across. In 1995, a Hubble photo showed the long axis of the spot at an estimated 13,020 miles across. And in a 2009 photo, it was measured at 11,130 miles across. Beginning in 2012, amateur observations revealed a noticeable increase in the rate at which the spot is shrinking -- by 580 miles p

Jupiter in Color, by Cassini

Saturn's Silhouetted Clouds

This photograph of the southern hemisphere of Jupiter was obtained by NASA's Voyager 2 on June 25, 1979. Seen in front of the turbulent clouds of the planet is Io, the innermost of the large Galilean satellites of Jupiter.

Bright puffs and ribbons of cloud drift lazily through Saturn's murky skies. In contrast to the bold red, orange and white clouds of Jupiter, Saturn's clouds are overlain by a thick layer of haze. The visible cloud tops on Saturn are deeper in its atmosphere due to the planet's cooler temperatures. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 18 degrees above the ringplane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 15, 2008 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (906,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 84 kilometers (52 miles) per pixel. http //photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09910

Mimas Adrift

A Change of Seasons on Saturn - October, 1998

After more than 13 years at Saturn, and with its fate sealed, NASA's Cassini spacecraft bid farewell to the Saturnian system by firing the shutters of its wide-angle camera and capturing this last, full mosaic of Saturn and its rings two days before the spacecraft's dramatic plunge into the planet's atmosphere. During the observation, a total of 80 wide-angle images were acquired in just over two hours. This view is constructed from 42 of those wide-angle shots, taken using the red, green and blue spectral filters, combined and mosaicked together to create a natural-color view. Six of Saturn's moons -- Enceladus, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Pandora and Prometheus -- make a faint appearance in this image. (Numerous stars are also visible in the background.) A second version of the mosaic is provided in which the planet and its rings have been brightened, with the fainter regions brightened by a greater amount. (The moons and stars have also been brightened by a factor of 15 in this versio

As Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter, it captured this photo of the great red spot, an anti- cyclonic (high-pressure) storm that can be likened to the worst hurricanes on Earth Date: 1 March 1979

Beautiful Saturn, as Seen by Hubble Space Telecope

Earth compared to Jupiter, illustration

Artist's impression of an ammonia clouds gas giant.

This Earth-based observation of Jupiter and the South Tropical Disturbance approaching the Great Red Spot was captured on Jan. 26, 2018. Amateur astronomer Christopher Go took and processed this image.

Artist's impression of an ultra-hot Jupiter.

Magnificent blue and gold Saturn floats obliquely as one of its gravity-bound companions, Dione, hangs in the distance. The darkened rings seem to nearly touch their shadowy reverse images on the planet below

NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this view of Jupiter during the mission's 54th close flyby of the giant planet on Sept. 7, 2023. The colorful zones and belts in Jupiter's atmosphere run from the cloud tops down to approximately 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers). Citizen scientist Tanya Oleksuik made this image using raw data from the JunoCam instrument, processing the data to enhance details in cloud features and colors. At the time the raw image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 52,400 miles (about 84,400 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops.

Representation of Uranus (planet) isolated on black background.

This was Cassini's view from orbit around Saturn on Jan. 2, 2010. In this image, the rings on the night side of the planet have been brightened significantly to more clearly reveal their features. On the day side, the rings are illuminated both by direct sunlight, and by light reflected off Saturn's cloud tops. This natural-color view is a composite of images taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from Saturn. The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.

Artist's concept showing how Neptune might look from a position in space above the plane of its rings

HD 40307 b is a super-Earth exoplanet that orbits a K-type star.

Artist's impression of an ellipsoid or squashed planet.

Approach to Saturn

Digital Illustration of the Sun and Nine Planets of Our Solar System

Jupiter's Great Red Spot and Io, illustration

Saturn and 4 Icy Moons, Enhanced Color

On January 15, 2001, 17 days after it passed its closest approach to Jupiter, NASA's Cassini spacecraft looked back to see the giant planet as a thinning crescent.

This view of Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere from NASA's Juno spacecraft includes several of the planet's southern jet streams. Using data from Juno's instruments, scientists discovered that Jupiter's powerful atmospheric jet streams extend far deeper than previously imagined. Evidence from Juno shows the jet streams and belts penetrate about 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) down into the planet. The storm known as the Great Red Spot is also visible on the horizon, nearly rotated out of view as Juno sped away from Jupiter at about 30 miles per second (48 kilometers per second), which is more than 100,000 mph (160,900 kilometers per hour). Citizen scientist Tanya Oleksuik created this color-enhanced image using data from the JunoCam camera. The original image was taken on Dec. 30, 2020 as the Juno spacecraft performed its 31st close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, the spacecraft was about 31,000 miles (about 50,000 kilometers) from the planet's cloud tops, at a latitude of about 50 degrees

April 23, 2008 - New hues are creeping into Saturn's northern cloud bands as winter gives way to spring there. During its first four years of exploration, Cassini has made the Saturn system a familiar place to us Earthlings. The intrepid craft has returned more than 150,000 images since arriving in orbit in mid-2004. In this natural color image, the blues and grays of Saturn's northern hemisphere, so striking in early Cassini images, are diminishing in intensity with the slow change of seasons

Exoplanet HAT-P-44 c.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft took narrow-angle images of Jupiter's outer atmosphere, showing the giant planet as if it were constantly bathed in sunlight.

Solar System

This composite image depicts one set of flow patterns simulated in the Geophysical Fluid Flow Cell (GFFC) that flew on two Spacelab missions. Silicone oil served as the atmosphere around a rotating steel hemisphere (dotted circle) and an electrostatic field pulled the oil inward to mimic gravity's effects during the experiments. The GFFC thus produced flow patterns that simulated conditions inside the atmospheres of Jupiter and the Sun and other stars. GFFC flew on Spacelab-3 in 1985 and U.S. Microgravity Laboratory-2 in 1995. The principal investigator was John Hart of the University of Colorado at Boulder. It was managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. (

Jupiter, its Great Red Spot and three of its four largest satellites are visible in this photo taken Feb. 5, 1979, by Voyager 1.

In the final minutes of a recent close flyby of Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft captured a departing view of the planet's swirling southern hemisphere. This color-enhanced image was taken at 7 13 p.m. PDT on Sept. 6, 2018 (10 13 p.m. EDT) as the spacecraft performed its 15th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was about 55,600 miles (89,500 kilometers) from the planet's cloud tops, above a southern latitude of approximately 75 degrees. Citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt created this image using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam imager.

Jupiter from Voyager 2

photo of Jupiters south polar region, captured by the JunoCam imager on NASAs Juno Orbiter on Feb. 2, 2017 reveals an arc of white oval storms.

This dramatic view of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and its surroundings was obtained by Voyager 1 on Feb. 25, 1979.

Jupiter, computer artwork.

Solar system, computer artwork.

Solar system 3d illustration sun and planets on black background

Illustration of Uranus

This enhanced-color image from NASA's Juno spacecraft of a mysterious dark spot on Jupiter seems to reveal a Jovian 'galaxy' of swirling storms.

Saturn from Far and Near

February 4, 2007 - Dark and sharply defined ring shadows appear to constrict the flow of color from Saturn's warmly hued south to the bluish northern latitudes. This view looks toward the lit side of the rings from about half a degree below the ring plane. Scientists studying Saturn are not yet sure about the precise cause of the color change from north to south. The Voyager spacecraft flybys witnessed a more evenly painted planet in the early 1980s, when Saturn was closer to equinox. However,

Titan Makes Contact

In this view of Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft captures swirling clouds in the region of the giant planet's northern hemisphere known as Jet N4. Jupiter spins once every 10 hours, and this fast rotation creates strong jet streams, separating its clouds into dark belts and bright zones that stretch across the face of the planet. More than a dozen prevailing winds sweep over Jupiter, some reaching more than 300 miles per hour (480 kilometers per hour) at the equator. The raw image was taken on Sept. 11, 2019 at 8 31 p.m. PDT (11 31 p.m. EDT), as Juno performed its 22nd close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 7,540 miles (12,140 kilometers) from the cloud tops at a latitude of 45 degrees. Enhanced image by Björn Jónsson (CC-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS.

This image shows one of the long-lived white oval clouds which have resided in the Jovian southern hemisphere for nearly 40 years.

Artist's depiction of the size relationship between Earth and GJ 1214b, also known as Gliese 1214b. Discovered in 2009 in the constellation Ophiuchus, some 40 light-years from Earth.

Peering over the shoulder of giant Saturn, through its rings, and across interplanetary space, NASA's Cassini spacecraft spies the bright, cloudy terrestrial planet, Venus.

Dione and Saturn Seen by Cassini

Artist's concept of Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

Saturn's winds race furiously around the planet, blowing at high speeds which form distinct belts and zones which encircle the planet's pole, as well as its famous hexagon as seen in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

Saturn's moon Epimetheus casts a shadow across colorful rings in this image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft before the planet's August 2009 equinox. Epimetheus is visible as a small dot at the center of the bottom of the image.

This view of Jupiter was taken by Voyager 1. This image was taken through color filters and recombined to produce the color image. This photo was assembled from three black and white negatives by the Image Processing Lab at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The color in the image is reconstructed by combining three different pictures, taken in blue, green and red light (4390, 5470 and 7180 angstroms). Because Saturn's north pole is currently tilted toward Earth (24 degrees), the HST image reveals unprecedented detail in atmospheric features at the northern polar hood, a region not extensively imaged by the Voyager space probes. The classic features of Saturn's vast ring system are also clearly seen from outer to irner edge; the bright A and B rings, divided by the Cassini division, and the very faint inner C ring. The Enche division, a dark gap near the outer edge of the A ring, has never before been photographed from Earth..

Tethys and the Rings of Saturn

DN-SC-85-01735. Country: Space

Illustration of Saturn

Ring Shadow on Saturn

Red dwarf star compared to Saturn, illustration

See Jupiter's southern hemisphere in beautiful detail in this new image taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft. The color-enhanced view captures one of the white ovals in the String of Pearls, one of eight massive rotating storms at 40 degrees south latitude on the gas giant planet. The image was taken on Oct. 24, 2017 at 11 11 a.m. PDT (2 11 p.m. EDT), as Juno performed its ninth close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 20,577 miles (33,115 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of minus 52.96 degrees. The spatial scale in this image is 13.86 miles/pixel (22.3 kilometers/pixel). Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager.

Saturn planet, isolated on black. Elements of this image are furnished by NASA

Jupiter's moon Amalthea casts a shadow on the gas giant planet in this image captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft. The elongated shape of the shadow is a result of both the location of the moon with relation to Jupiter in this image as well as the irregular shape of the moon itself. The image was taken on Sept. 1, 2017 at 2 46 p.m. PDT (5 46 p.m. EDT), as Juno performed its eighth close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 2,397 miles (3,858 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of 17.6 degrees. Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager. The image has been rotated so that the top of the image is actually the equatorial regions while the bottom of the image is of the northern polar regions of the planet.

Saturn's fine, innermost rings are seen silhouetted against the southern hemisphere of the planet before partially disappearing into shadow

Artist's concept of Saturn as seen from the surface of its moon Iapetus

Pioneer-Venus Image Enhanced Ocpp. 00094

While on final approach for its Sept. 2007 close encounter with Saturn's moon Iapetus, NASA's Cassini spacecraft spun around to take in a sweeping view of the Saturn System.

Artist's concept of an Extrasolar Gas Giant with two of its' many moons

Saturn

Jupiter's Great Red Spot, illustration

As it glanced around the Saturn system one final time, NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this view of the planet's giant moon Titan. Interest in mysterious Titan was a major motivating factor to return to Saturn with Cassini-Huygens following the Voyager mission flybys of the early 1980s. Cassini and its Huygens probe, supplied by European Space Agency, revealed the moon to be every bit as fascinating as scientists had hoped. These views were obtained by Cassini's narrow-angle camera on Sept. 13, 2017. They are among the last images Cassini sent back to Earth. This natural color view, made from images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters, shows Titan much as Voyager saw it -- a mostly featureless golden orb, swathed in a dense atmospheric haze. An enhanced-color view (Figure 1) adds to this color a separate view taken using a spectral filter (centered at 938 nanometers) that can partially see through the haze. The views were acquired at a distance of 481,000 miles (774,000

A Change of Seasons on Saturn

Saturn's moon Dione drifts before the planet's rings, seen here almost edge on. For all their immense width, the rings are relatively paper-thin, about 30 feet (10 meters) in most places. For its part, Dione is about 698 miles (1,123 kilometers) across. This natural-color view was obtained on Aug. 17, 2015 with Cassini's wide-angle camera at a distance of approximately 66,200 miles (106,500 kilometers) from Dione. The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017

A dynamic storm at the southern edge of Jupiter's northern polar region dominates this Jovian cloudscape, courtesy of NASA's Juno spacecraft. This storm is a long-lived anticyclonic oval named North North Temperate Little Red Spot 1 (NN-LRS-1); it has been tracked at least since 1993, and may be older still. An anticyclone is a weather phenomenon where winds around the storm flow in the direction opposite to that of the flow around a region of low pressure. It is the third largest anticyclonic oval on the planet, typically around 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) long. The color varies between red and off-white (as it is now), but this JunoCam image shows that it still has a pale reddish core within the radius of maximum wind speeds. Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager. The image has been rotated so that the top of the image is actually the equatorial regions while the bottom of the image is of the northern polar regio

Looking cool and serene, Saturn shares its soft glow with NASA's Cassini Orbiter.

Montage of images of the Saturnian system prepared from pictures taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft during its Saturn encounter Date: 17 November 1980

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