Jupiter lights up the night in infrared Recently, astronomers at the Gemini North Observatory in Hawaii created some of the best infrared photos of Jupiter ever taken from Earth’s surface. Gemini produced such a clear image using a technique called lucky imaging which takes many images and combines only the clearest ones that, by chance, were taken when Earth's atmosphere was the most calm. Jupiter’s jack-o’-lantern-like appearance is caused by the planet’s different layers of clouds. Infrared light can pass through clouds better than visible light allowing us to see the deeper, hotter layers of Jupiter's atmosphere and the thickest clouds which appear dark. These pictures, together with ones from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Juno spacecraft, tell us how weather patterns form on Jupiter like its massive, planet-sized storms. #nasa #science #technology #jupiter #planets
