A photograph shared on social media in early November 2024 was taken by NASA and showed the planet Jupiter.
While the photo does show Jupiter, its colors were digitally enhanced.
In early November 2024, a photograph purportedly released by NASA and showing a detailed view of Jupiter circulated on social media.
“NASA Just Dropped Some of the Sharpest Images of Jupiter to Date,” one Reddit user said (archived) of the image.
(Reddit u/Correct_Presence_936)
The picture spread across social media, on X, Reddit, 9GAG, Threads, Russian-language social media platform VK and Polish-language websites such as Demotywatory and Obrazkowo.
People were quick to draw comparisons to Vincent van Gogh’s paintings, with one 9GAG user saying, “Van Gogh approves,” and a Reddit user adding, “My first thought was ‘Van Gogh planet.'”
In short, while the colors in the photo had been digitally enhanced for emphasis, we rated this claim as true because the image was genuine, originally released by NASA and accurately depicted Jupiter.
One example of the picture was available on the website for NASA’s Mission Juno, said to be “exploring Jupiter, seeking to unlock secrets of the giant planet and our solar system.” The photograph’s caption read: “Northern Circumpolar Cyclones”:
(NASA / JPL / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt)
A NASA spokesperson said via email that the image above, which appeared on the agency’s website, was not the original, but “a version with more subtle colors made by prolific image processor Gerald Eichstädt.”
The detailed description of Eichstädt’s image read:
The image is reprojected according to a preliminary geometrical camera model, cleaned from some of the camera artifacts, approximately illumination adjusted with a 3rd degree polynomial BRDF over the cosines of the incidence and emission angle on the basis of PJ50 images, linearized to radiometric values, white-balanced with linear factors (0.629;1.0;3.65) for (R;G;B) on the basis of inbound PJ63 JunoCam images, and displayed with gamma=2 with respect to the square root of radiometric values.
Resolution is 30 pixels per degrees in an equidistant cylindrical system centered to the camera at image stop time, with an axis parallel to Juno’s spin axis. The rendered field of view is 60×180 degrees.
According to Mission Juno’s website, it shares raw images from JunoCam and encourages people to perform their own image processing: “The types of image processing we’d love to see range from simply cropping an image to highlighting a particular atmospheric feature, as well as adding your own color enhancements, creating collages and adding advanced color reconstruction.”
The website also stated it invites “citizen scientists to explore new ways to process these images to continue to bring out the beauty and mysteries of Jupiter and its moons.”
Therefore, the image of Jupiter circulating on social media was a real photograph taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, but was modified to enhance its colors and contrast, as encouraged by NASA.
The NASA spokesperson added:
The version on Reddit might have been made directly from the raw files by someone else, or it could have used Gerald’s version as a starting point and then have been further edited. This happens pretty frequently.
In any case it’s real, if color enhanced. Not the closest or clearest view ever.
Below is a comparison between Eichstädt’s image (on the left) and the color-enhanced version (on the right).
(NASA / JPL / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt, Reddit u/Correct_Presence_936)
For further reading, we have investigated similar photographs allegedly showing celestial bodies, such as: