Range : 4.0 million km. ( 2.5 million miles ) This brown oval, located between Jupiter's 13 and 18 degree N latitude, may be an opening in the upper cloud deck. It was a selected target to be photographed by Voyager I on its closest approach to Jupiter because, if observed at high resolution, could provide information on deeper, warmer cloud levels. Above the oval, is the pale orange North Temperate Belt, bounded on the south by the North Temperate Current, with winds of 120 meters/sec. ( 260 Mi./hr ). The smallest resolvable features from this photograph is 75 km ( 45 miles ) wide. ARC-1979-AC79-7005

In 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 started their one-way journey to the end of the solar system and beyond, now traveling a million miles a day. Jimmy Carter was president when NASA launched two probes from Cape Canaveral. Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were initially meant to explore Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons. They did that. But then they kept going at a rate of 35,000 miles per hour. Each craft bears an object that is a record, both dubbed the Golden Records. They were the product of Carl Sagan and his team who produced a record that would, if discovered by aliens, represent humanity and "communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials."