Nowadays, every time I view an image of something in the cosmos, I squint in suspicion before reveling in awe. I find myself wondering: Is this actually what that thing looks like?
Most of the time, scientists add artistic flourishes to their space-y images. This isn’t just for fun (though it is quite fun), but because a little bit of colorizing goes a long way when emphasizing raw planetary visuals or depicting cosmic light undetectable by human pupils.
What this means, for us spacegazers, is that no matter how hard NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope might’ve tried to convince us, the Carina Nebula doesn’t resemble warm, melted toffee. Despite what elementary school textbooks say, Venus isn’t a mustard yellow sphere. And contrary to what the Hubble Space Telescope suggests, the Veil Nebula is unfortunately not an iridescent rainbow worm. I could go on.
So, whenever I get to glance at an image of a realm beyond Earth I know isn’t colorized, I stare a little longer than usual — and on Tuesday, we were blessed with one such marvel.
Behold, the left side of the following image, taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. It’s approximately how Jupiter’s surface would appear if we could somehow gawk at it like we admire the moon. King of the solar system, indeed.
Can’t help but peer at the right side? Same. But be careful. That’s one of those suspicious processed images. It has an increased color saturation and contrast to sharpen small-scale Jovian features, NASA said in a statement. This manipulation was important to reduce noise or other artifacts in the portrait, the agency explains.
“This clearly reveals some of the most intriguing aspects of Jupiter’s atmosphere,” NASA said, “including color variation that results from differing chemical composition, the three-dimensional nature of Jupiter’s swirling vortices, and the small, bright ‘pop-up’ clouds that form in the higher parts of the atmosphere.”
Of course, this version of Jupiter’s marbled skin is undeniably more visually striking – but consider how the left-side is our reality. Out in space, there’s an orb made of swirling gas that could fit more than 1,300 Earths within. And…it probably looks just like that?
Our latest special lens on Jupiter is thanks to citizen scientist Björn Jónsson, who collected and compiled publicly available data taken with NASA’s Juno mission. Juno is a spacecraft that spans the width of a basketball court and makes long, looping orbits around the red-brown world while capturing information and images about its planetary muse.
Read More: NASA Captures Jupiter’s True Colors, and It’s a Special Sight