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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope detected a narrow, fast-moving jet above Jupiter’s equator, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) above the planet’s main cloud tops. The jet was moving at roughly 320 miles per hour (515 kilometers per hour), but researchers have only observed it at one epoch, so they do not yet know how it changes over time or what drives it.
What Webb found above Jupiter’s clouds
The feature is a narrow, intense equatorial jet in Jupiter’s lower stratosphere—the atmospheric layer above the main cloud decks. NASA reported that it stretches more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) across and travels at about 320 miles per hour (515 kilometers per hour). Those figures describe the jet in the 2022 observations, not a long-term average.
The result was reported by NASA on 19 October 2023, based on observations made with Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). The peer-reviewed study appeared in Nature Astronomy. NASA’s summary describes the location and scale of the feature in its report on Webb’s Jupiter observations.
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Near-infrared images traced atmospheric features
Webb observed Jupiter on 27 July 2022 as part of the Jupiter System Early Release Science program. Its NIRCam images used four filters sensitive to different atmospheric altitudes. The observing sequence captured images ten hours apart—one Jupiter day—so researchers could track features as the planet rotated.
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Rather than measuring the wind directly, the team tracked atmospheric haze features across the images. In the upper haze, those features revealed motion that differed from the motions seen at the main cloud layer. Ricardo Hueso, the study’s lead author at the University of the Basque Country, said, “What we have always seen as blurred hazes in Jupiter’s atmosphere now appear as crisp features that we can track along with the planet’s fast rotation.”
Hubble added a view of deeper weather
Hubble Space Telescope observations the following day helped researchers establish context at deeper atmospheric levels. They also helped distinguish convective storms that were not associated with the jet. The combined views made it possible to compare the newly tracked upper-atmosphere motion with activity nearer the clouds.
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Why the discovery surprised researchers
Jupiter’s cloud-level winds and atmospheric bands are familiar, but the Webb images exposed a distinct, elevated jet that had not been resolved in this way before. The team found it in three of the filters and noted that its motion differed from the motion at the main cloud layer. Hueso described the finding as “something that totally surprised us.”
The unexpected part is not simply that Jupiter has wind. It is that a narrow, fast jet appears in the lower stratosphere, where the observed haze motions do not match the familiar motions of the cloud tops. Existing simulations did not reproduce the elevated jet described in the study, leaving an important gap between observations and models.
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What the jet could reveal about Jupiter’s atmosphere
The study suggests that Jupiter’s stratospheric equatorial oscillations—a pattern of changing winds in the stratosphere—may extend into the upper troposphere. If so, processes in one atmospheric layer could be linked to winds in another. That is a proposed interpretation, not a confirmed explanation for how the jet forms.
Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester, a member of the study team, said that if the jet’s strength is connected to the oscillating stratospheric pattern, it might vary considerably over the next two to four years. That was a prediction to test with later observations, not a report that such a change had already been measured.
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What scientists still do not know
The lower-stratospheric jet was observed at a single epoch: the July 2022 observing sequence. The study therefore does not establish whether its speed, altitude, width, or strength change over time. NASA said further Webb observations could help test for change, while the paper identifies the limited time coverage as a constraint on understanding the feature.
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Why the finding matters beyond one wind measurement
Webb’s result gives researchers a new atmospheric feature to investigate and a way to compare motions at different heights in Jupiter’s atmosphere. It points to possible links between the stratosphere and troposphere, while leaving the jet’s persistence and cause open. The observation is a useful clue about how Jupiter’s atmospheric layers may interact—not a complete explanation of the planet’s weather.
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