Advertisement

spaceSpace and Physics
clockPUBLISHED

NASA Released Photos Of Jupiter And Everyone Is Making The Same Joke

James Felton

James Felton

James Felton

James Felton

Senior Staff Writer

James is a published author with four pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.

Senior Staff Writer

comments16Comments

NASA/@TimFletcher18

NASA has released some absolutely stunning photos of Jupiter taken by the Juno mission. The photos are the most detailed view of Jupiter's Red Spot we've ever seen. Needless to say, they're absolutely gorgeous.

However, when NASA released the photos, people noticed something about them, and they have been making the same joke about them ever since. See if you can spot what it is.

Advertisement
-

Still none the wiser? Have another look at the shape.

Ok, brace yourselves. It's not big or clever.

The joke that everyone is making about these incredible new photos is that it's a shame that the storm is known as the "Great Red Spot" because the photos are shaped like sanitary towels.

-
-

Yep, one of the most incredible scientific achievements of our lifetimes has led to a lot of people making sanitary towel jokes. Which probably isn't quite the response NASA was hoping for.

-
-

Some jokes were more sophisticated than others.

-
-
-

So why did NASA choose to release images that look like sanitary towels? These people weren't the only ones who were curious about that.

-

Well, the answer is that the image is a composite of several different photos taken by Juno as it flies over. They are then stitched together to make one photo, rather than many smaller patchy photographs of the planet.

So why aren't the photos rectangular, like a panorama? A PhD astronomer and astrophysicist at the Genève Observatory explained on Twitter: "The distance between Juno and Jupiter is not constant, so neither is the actual size of Jupiter's area seen by the camera."


ARTICLE POSTED IN

spaceSpace and Physics
FOLLOW ONNEWSGoogele News