Weizmann Team Redraws Jupiter's Global Shape

An international Weizmann Institute-led team used 26 radio-occultation passes by NASA's Juno spacecraft to redraw Jupiter's size and shape, publishing results in Nature Astronomy on Feb. 4, 2026. The analysis finds Jupiter's equatorial diameter about 8 kilometers smaller and the polar diameter about 24 kilometers smaller than earlier Voyager/Pioneer estimates, improving fit to gravity and atmospheric models and refining gas-giant formation studies.