New images of Jupiter

Why is Jupiter so colorful?

If the variation of color are indicative of a similar variation in density, why is there so much turbulence in Jupiter, why are the upper layers not more consistent? Tidal motion? Anyone know?

It says exaggerated color/contrast. It seems to be a trend lately like the recent images of the Moon and Pluto. They might even be translating non-visible spectra to color so the material composition can be distinguished better, like they do with nebula and such.

It is well intentioned, it makes the images much more informative, and they are just really cool, which helps with public support. But it is also a bit misleading and confuses people.

In this post[1] there's a JunoCam picture from a previous flyby, which has been adjusted to be roughly as a human would see it. Still a lot of color though!

This[2] paper studies the ovals but has some details on the atmosphere, including the colors:

The reddish color is usually attributed to red “chromophores”, which are products of a series of complex chemical reactions, such as the UV photolization of ammonia with acetylene. These chromophores can act as coating material for the ammonia particles.

The cloud structure of the Jupiter's atmosphere, and in particular the nature of vortex features, as the [Great Red Spot] and the white ovals, is still puzzling.

This[3] paper tries to reproduce the reactions in the lab and compare them with the observed colors. It goes into some more details around the potential color formation.

I also want to just include this picture[4] because I just love the tiny fluffy clouds, which shadows provides amazing depth feeling.

[1]: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia25018-nasas-juno-mission-...

[2]: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201... Characterization of the white ovals on Jupiter's southern hemisphere using the first data by the Juno/JIRAM instrument

[3]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2016.03.008 Chromophores from photolyzed ammonia reacting with acetylene: Application to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (use the hub of science for full paper)

[4]: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241103.html

You can assume almost every space images you see are "false colors" unless stated otherwise

https://science.nasa.gov/resource/jupiter-in-true-and-false-...

https://www.cnet.com/science/space/why-nasas-image-of-jupite...