Chandra Release - November 6, 2017

Visual Description: Jupiter

Two X-ray and optical images of the planet Jupiter feature swirling browns, blues and white with a couple splotches of purple-pink. The optical images of the planet show the North pole at left and South pole at right. These optical images were taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft with the X-ray data included from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Jupiter's X-ray emissions (colored in purple-pink) show an X-ray hot spot at each pole. Each hot spot can cover an area equal to about half the surface of the Earth. The hot spots have very different characteristics. The X-ray emission at Jupiter's south pole consistently pulsed every 11 minutes, but the X-rays seen from the north pole were erratic, increasing and decreasing in brightness - seemingly independent of the emission from the south pole.