Haze bands: Comparison to image of terrestrial haze

By Bjorn_Jonsson on 2021-05-13 UT

I recently saw a Landsat 8 image that might be of periheral interest when looking at JunoCam's images of Jupiter's haze bands. I'm attaching a montage showing a JunoCam image at left and the Landsat image at right.

The heavily processed JunoCam image at left in the montage shows long bands of haze in Jupiter's northern hemisphere. It was obtained during the PJ25 flyby on February 17, 2020 (image PJ25_18). The haze band appears slightly bluish and apparently casts brownish shadows on the cloud deck below.

The image at right in the montage was obtained by Landsat 8 on May 9, 2021. It is processed from bands 4, 3 and 2 (red/green/blue) and includes the site of the ongoing Geldingadalir volcanic eruption in Iceland. The volcanic plume containing sulphur dioxide (SO2) among other things is clearly visible; clouds and hazes associated with it extend to the west (or WSW). What this has in common with the image of Jupiter is that the plume and associated haze also appears slightly bluish and casts brownish shadows (this can be verified by looking at earlier images; the shadows are real features, there are no dark and/or brownish areas where the shadows are located). These shadows also appear different from shadows cast by regular clouds in the image. This image is slightly enhanced to better show the plume and the shadows and the color saturation was also increased. The JunoCam image is much more heavily processed.

This comparison between JunoCam and Landsat images was inspired by a Facebook post from the Volcanology and Natural Hazard Group at the University of Iceland which posted a different version of this Landsat image (different bands were used) and mentioned the bluish haze and yellowish/brownish shadows from the plume. This particular Facebook post is here:

https://www.facebook.com/Natturuva/posts/2901017770112311

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