Surely you have ever lain down on the ground and played guessing the shape of the clouds, right? A hot day at the beach, or a day when you are at the pool and you have nothing to do. A car, an old man, a flower… Now NASA seems to have been playing that game with Jupiter too. Do you know who the Juno Probe is? Well, now it has captured the image of a dolphin swimming among the gases of this planet. Although it sounds unreal, it is not an extraterrestrial animal, but a natural phenomenon that has such a simple explanation that we are going to tell you about it below.
Are there dolphins on Jupiter?
To date, no. No dolphins, no killer whales, and no living beings (that we know of) at the moment. What appears in the image is a set of clouds and shadows that are found in the southern Temperate Belt (a region of Jupiter’s atmosphere) and was discovered by Brian Swift and Sean Doran, who were analysing the photographs taken of this very interesting planet.
So why do we see a dolphin?
Because our brain tends to associate figures with elements that we already know. Have you ever been scared thinking that a wall had a face and it was just a reflection? It is the same phenomenon and it is very common for us to experience it. It is called pareidolia and it happens because our head is programmed to recognize patterns that we already know (this increases our survival instinct).
What is the JUNO probe?
Juno is a spacecraft that NASA sent into space in 2011 and arrived at Jupiter in 2016, becoming the first mission to analyse the planet in depth. It is specifically designed to investigate Jupiter’s atmosphere and how it works. Its key questions are to help us answer questions like: What is Jupiter made of? Does it have a solid core or just gas? How do the giant storms on this planet work? The best thing about this probe is that it works and is powered by solar energy (even though it is so far from the sun) and it is expected that throughout 2025 it will continue to work correctly because it is as if we had two eyes on this planet.
What do we know about Jupiter?
That it is the king of the planets, yes, exactly. It is the largest and heaviest and also one of the most mysterious for the scientific community. If we compare, the Earth could be a marble next to Jupiter (which would be something like a soccer ball), it could contain 1300 Earths inside it! It is something practically incredible. But its size is not the only thing that leaves us so perplexed, its atmosphere is in constant movement and suffers various giant storms, such as the Great Red Spot that has been active for more than 300 years!
But it does not stop there, Jupiter does not have a surface on which you could stand because it is made of hydrogen and helium, and if you fell on it, you would continue falling until you were crushed by the pressure of its atmosphere, something truly very complicated for us to imagine.
In addition, you have surely heard about the 95 moons that this planet has that accompany it on its journey, and the best of all is that this planet works as a protector of the solar system because it attracts all the asteroids and comets that could impact with us, basically it is as if it were our older brother.
So, no, unfortunately there are no dolphins on Jupiter, but NASA keeps reminding us once again how diverse, intriguing and magical our universe is. Thanks to Juno, we can now learn a little more about this incredible planet thanks to its camera. What more secrets will it bring us about this incredible planet?