If fears of World War 3 have got you down, don’t fret. We’ve got some glorious new pictures of Jupiter to hopefully take your mind off things. These latest snaps were taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft during its seventh science flyby over Jupiter. The spacecraft is in a wide orbit around the planet, swooping down every 53 days to gather science and take images. The rest of the time it spends further out, to avoid Jupiter’s intense radiation.
Juno began its latest flyby on Friday, using its JunoCam instrument to capture close-up images of the planet. NASA released the pictures as raw images on its website, allowing members of the public to then submit their own processed views of the gas giant.
The latest images reveal Jupiter’s fantastic bands of clouds. You can easily make out storms swirling across the surface and there are also several views of white spots, large storms that rage in the upper atmosphere of the planet.
During this flyby, Juno swooped to within 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) of the cloud tops of the planet. It is using these passes to study the planet in detail, with scientists hoping to figure out what the core of the planet is like and also how its weird magnetic field works.
Juno’s primary mission, during which it will perform 12 orbits of Jupiter, will end in July 2018. After that, if the spacecraft is still in good health, then there’s a chance the mission could be extended.
For now though, feast your eyes on some of these glorious images.
