Swimming on Jupiter

On October 29, the Juno spacecraft once again dove near the turbulent Jovian cloud tops. Its 16th orbital closest approach or perijove passage , brought Juno within 3,500 kilometers of the Solar System's largest planetary atmosphere. These frames, recorded by JunoCam while the spacecraft cruised 20 - 50 thousand kilometers above the planet's middle southern latitudes, seem to follow a swirling cloud shaped remarkably like a dolphin. Swimming along Jupiter's darker South South Temperate Belt, this dolphin is itself planet-sized though, some thousands of kilometers across. Juno's next perijove passage is coming up on December 21.