Jupiter's swirling clouds took on the appearance of Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" painting when the solar system's largest planet was recently photographed by NASA's Juno spacecraft.
The observation made by "citizen scientist" Amelia Carolina Sparavigna was taken from a photo from the probe's Feb. 2 flyby as it repeatedly circles the planet every 53 days, according to Space.com.
Juno has been examining Jupiter since its arrival on July 4, 2016, getting a clearing picture of the planet's weather, magnetic environment and its history. The spacecraft is expected to end its mission when it crashes into Jupiter in February 2018.
"While in orbit at Jupiter, the spinning spacecraft sweeps the fields of view of its instruments through space once for each rotation," according to NASA's Juno website. "At three rotations per minute, the instruments' fields of view sweep across Jupiter about 400 times in the two hours it takes to fly from pole to pole."
Others on social media have pointed to the similarities between Jupiter's clouds and Van Gogh.
Because Jupiter's orbit around the sun is five times farther than Earth, it receives 25 percent less sunlight. Juno was equipped with larger solar panels to generate enough power for its scientific experiments, noted NASA.
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