The spacecraft that came before Juno
The Juno spacecraft is not the first to visit Jupiter – this honour goes to the Pioneer 10 spacecraft back in December of 1973. The planet has been visited by a total of eight spacecraft prior to the arrival of Juno in July of 2016. Out of these eight, only the Galileo spacecraft entered orbit, […]
What’s happening in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere down at the equator?
The northern and southern lights of Jupiter are a vibrant and dynamic phenomena, generated by a complex array of mechanisms that create the most powerful aurora in the solar system. There are many aspects of the Jovian aurora which remain to be discovered – something Juno will reveal during it’s time at Jupiter – but […]
First, wonderful, glimpse of Jupiter
Wow! The Juno spacecraft did not disappoint! The images released after Juno’s first science perijove are absolutely stunning. The one that grabbed me was this one: Jupiter’s southern infrared aurora as observed by Juno JIRAM (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM) It is the first image released from the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM), an instrument contributed by the […]
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