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by magicalhippo 595 days ago
In this post[1] there's a JunoCam picture from a previous flyby, which has been adjusted to be roughly as a human would see it. Still a lot of color though!

This[2] paper studies the ovals but has some details on the atmosphere, including the colors:

The reddish color is usually attributed to red “chromophores”, which are products of a series of complex chemical reactions, such as the UV photolization of ammonia with acetylene. These chromophores can act as coating material for the ammonia particles.

The cloud structure of the Jupiter's atmosphere, and in particular the nature of vortex features, as the [Great Red Spot] and the white ovals, is still puzzling.

This[3] paper tries to reproduce the reactions in the lab and compare them with the observed colors. It goes into some more details around the potential color formation.

I also want to just include this picture[4] because I just love the tiny fluffy clouds, which shadows provides amazing depth feeling.

[1]: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia25018-nasas-juno-mission-...

[2]: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201... Characterization of the white ovals on Jupiter's southern hemisphere using the first data by the Juno/JIRAM instrument

[3]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2016.03.008 Chromophores from photolyzed ammonia reacting with acetylene: Application to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (use the hub of science for full paper)

[4]: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241103.html