Juno flew by Jupiter in March of 2017 skimming 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops while traveling about 129,000 mph (208,000 km/h) relative to the planet, NASA officials said. Hold my coffee, I can’t stop staring at the images. Is that even real?
NASA’s Juno spacecraft is the first solar-powered space probe sent out to study our solar system’s largest planet Jupiter. Juno’s mission is to orbit the gas giant in polar orbit and study its structure while mapping its magnetic field and gravity. Studying Jupiter will allow researchers to better understand large planets discovered across the cosmos.
So far the US$1 billion spacecraft has managed to take an image of Jupiter’s poles for the first time, it has come across really strange cloud formations, heard and recorded mysterious auroras, and skimmed deep into the planet’s thick cloud tops, doing what no other spacecraft has done before. We are proud of you Juno.
And while science is the most important thing on the mission, NASA’s spacecraft are known for being really good photographers.
Just as the Cassini spacecraft recently beamed back unprecedented images of Saturn, Juno also has its fair share of breathtaking images—is it time we should award a Pulitzer Prize for Photography to one of those spacecraft?
Juno is the ninth probe from Earth sent to Jupiter, and only the second probe to orbit the planet, but it is the first probe to snap amazingly beautiful images of the gas giant.
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| Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko |
Juno flew by Jupiter in March of 2017 scanning 2,700 miles above Jupiter’s cloud tops while traveling about 129,000 mph relative to the planet, NASA officials said. As it whizzed passed the Gas Giant it captured this image. Juno Cam took close-up color photos of the mysterious and massive planet.
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| Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko |
Hold my coffee, I can’t stop staring at the images. Is that even real?
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| Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko |
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| Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko |