Intense, swirling and whirling cyclones cover Jupiter’s north and south poles, according to images released by the US space agency Nasa on 7 March.
The images, taken by the Juno spacecraft, show eight cyclones circling another huge cyclone on Jupiter’s north pole, and six more covering its south pole. Each cyclone is thought to be several thousand miles across with winds reaching 220mph – more than a category five hurricane here on Earth.
Alberto Adriani, Juno co-investigator from the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology in Rome, Italy, said, “Each one of the northern cyclones is almost as wide as the distance between Naples, Italy and New York City – and the southern ones are even larger than that,” he said. These super storms haven’t changed position, or merged, since…