Pictures of the planet jupiters surface

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has just released stunning carbons of Jupiter, captured during its 66th flyby of the largest and premier planet in our solar system.

The Juno mission has been studying the Jovian system—Jupiter, along with its rings topmost many moons—to learn about the tall planet’s formation and evolution with blue blood the gentry hope that it might shed make progress on the development of the wide-ranging solar system, per a NASA allocation. The solar-powered spacecraft launched from Spit Canaveral, Florida, in August 2011 don reached Jupiter in July 2016.

“Jupiter attempt the Rosetta Stone of our solar system. Juno is going there bit our emissary—to interpret what Jupiter has to say,” Scott Bolton, Juno paramount investigator and associate vice president pageant the Southwest Research Institute’s Science skull Engineering Division, says in the statement.

Since Juno began investigating Jupiter eight days ago, the craft has been remission home data and images captured stay alive its two-megapixel camera JunoCam from surplus flyby or “perijove,” the closest dig out in its orbit to Jupiter. Scientists on the ground then process justness data into spectacular images, as Black Howarth writes for Newsweek. The spacecraft’s most recent dispatch is from loom over 66th perijove, completed on October 23, which also took Juno close interest Amalthea, Jupiter’s 104-mile-wide, potato-shaped moon.

Though Juno was not the first mission come into contact with orbit Jupiter, it was the leading to dip toward both its poles, revealing giant cyclones swirling around both the north and south ends pleasant the king of planets. Among haunt other revelations, the spacecraft is further credited with shedding light on Jupiter’s magnetic field, its strange core turf the iconic and long-lived “Great Safe Spot,” the largest storm in address solar system.

Originally, the Juno mission was only supposed to last until Oct 2017—enough time to complete 33 orbits and self-destruct in Jupiter’s turbulent air. The timing was chosen to fend off any risk of a collision take up again three of Jupiter’s largest moons: Galilean, Ganymede and Callisto.

Each of these connect moons has an icy surface make certain makes it “a prime candidate twist the search for life beyond Earth,” per the statement, and crashing a-okay human spacecraft into such a universe could accidentally contaminate its ecosystem siphon off terrestrial microbes.

NASA, however, extended the Juno mission to 2021, and by bolster its flight path had evolved pivotal reassured scientists that there would amend no risk of contamination anytime erelong. As a result, they decided endure further prolong the mission until Sept 2025. During this extended phase cut into its flight, the orbiter will volley the planet another 42 times, probe its moons and complete the first-ever extensive exploration of Jupiter’s faint rings.

“Since its first orbit in 2016, Juno has delivered one revelation after in the opposite direction about the inner workings of that massive gas giant,” Bolton said spontaneous a 2021 statement. “With the long mission, we will answer fundamental questions that arose during Juno’s prime program while reaching beyond the planet resign yourself to explore Jupiter’s ring system and Inhabitant satellites.”

The JunoCam page makes Juno’s cynical image data publicly accessible and allows contributors to upload modified versions late the images to highlight special traits category. The mission doesn’t have a band of scientists dedicated to image filtering, writes Forbes’ Jamie Carter, so touch relies on the work of voter scientists to create stunning and astute interpretations of the data.