03.13.25
Jupiter Ascending
Our Juno spacecraft captured a departing view of the planet’s swirling southern hemisphere in the final moments of a close flyby of Jupiter on Sept. 6, 2018. This color-enhanced image was captured as the spacecraft performed its 15th close flyby of Jupiter about 55,600 miles (89,500 kilometers) above the planet’s cloud tops. As of October 2024, Juno has performed 66 flybys!
Since 2016, Juno has been penetrating Jupiter’s deep, colorful zones and belts in a quest to answer fundamental questions about the gas giant’s origin and evolution. Now in its extended mission, Juno will continue to explore the solar system’s largest planet through September 2025, or until the spacecraft’s end of life. This mission extension expands to the full Jovian system – Jupiter and its rings and moons – with an additional pass planned for two of Jupiter’s most intriguing moons: Europa and Io.
Image description: Jupiter’s hemisphere takes up the right half of the screen. As a color-enhanced image, its colors appear more saturated and richer, allowing the details of Jupiter’s swirls to be more defined. Jupiter’s stripes radiate from the center of the planet out, first in a deep teal, transitioning to a stripe of a lighter green, followed by beige, terracotta, and beige once again.
#NASA #Space #Jupiter #SolarSystem #Planet #Juno #Stripes #Swirls #Spacecraft
Since 2016, Juno has been penetrating Jupiter’s deep, colorful zones and belts in a quest to answer fundamental questions about the gas giant’s origin and evolution. Now in its extended mission, Juno will continue to explore the solar system’s largest planet through September 2025, or until the spacecraft’s end of life. This mission extension expands to the full Jovian system – Jupiter and its rings and moons – with an additional pass planned for two of Jupiter’s most intriguing moons: Europa and Io.
Image description: Jupiter’s hemisphere takes up the right half of the screen. As a color-enhanced image, its colors appear more saturated and richer, allowing the details of Jupiter’s swirls to be more defined. Jupiter’s stripes radiate from the center of the planet out, first in a deep teal, transitioning to a stripe of a lighter green, followed by beige, terracotta, and beige once again.
#NASA #Space #Jupiter #SolarSystem #Planet #Juno #Stripes #Swirls #Spacecraft
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt