Oh snap! Juno sends back its first images of Jupiter while in orbit

Nasa's probe will make a similar approach to the gas giant on August 27

13 Jul 2016
First image of Jupiter from Nasa's Juno spacecraft



A little over a week since it made its descent into the Jovian system, Nasa's Juno has shared its first images of Jupiter while in orbit.

In a tweet on the Juno mission's official Twitter handle, Nasa wrote: "Aww snap. My first in-orbit view of #Jupiter. Getting up close and personal again on Aug 27."

The low-resolution shots were taken using the JunoCam camera. The first high-resolution images of the gas giant are still a few weeks away.

JunoCam is a colour, visible-light camera designed to capture pictures of Jupiter's poles and cloud tops. As Juno's 'eyes', it will provide a wide view, helping to provide context for the spacecraft's other instruments.


The view was obtained on July 10, 2016, at 1:30pm (5:30 UTC), when the spacecraft was 2.7 million miles (4.3 million kilometres) from Jupiter on the outbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit.

The colour image shows atmospheric features on Jupiter, including the planet's Great Red Spot, and three of the its four largest moons – Io, Europa and Ganymede, from left to right in the image.



The first part of the mission took five years – and reportedly $1.1 billion – but Nasa's spacecraft entered into orbit around Jupiter in the early hours of the morning on July 5.

The event began with a 35-minute engine burn designed to slow Juno down enough to be "caught" by the gas giant's gravity.

The Nasa spacecraft has been travelling through space since August 5 2011, and journeyed 1.8 billion miles (1.2b km). At its closest, Jupiter is 365m miles (588km) away from Earth, but by the time Juno arrived, the distance between Earth and the planet had expanded to 540m miles (869m km).

The mission


Now Juno is "caught" in Jupiter's gravitational pull, the probe will repeatedly dive between the planet and its intense belts of charged particle radiation, coming only about 3,000 miles (5,000km) from the cloud tops at its closest approach. Its primary goal is to reveal the story of Jupiter's formation and evolution.

In particular, Juno will give humans the first glimpse below the dense clouds of Jupiter. The scientific data collected from the mission will let researchers learn more about the planet than ever before. It will take the highest resolution images of Jupiter in history and is the first mission to orbit an outer-planet from pole-to-pole.

The striped planet – the effect is created by swirling winds – is mostly composed of hydrogen and helium. It is believed by scientists to have been one of the first in the solar system to have formed. The most notable feature, the giant red spot, is twice the width of Earth.


The craft will study the planet's gravity and magnetic fields, atmosphere, and what drives the planet's evolution.

During its time at Jupiter the spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 37 times. Nasa said: "During the almost one-and-a-half-year science phase of the mission, the spacecraft will execute a close flyby above the planet’s cloud tops every 14 days."

The Juno spacecraft

Named after the Roman goddess, the craft is powered by three solar arrays that turn the sun's light into electricity. Each of the arrays, which protrude from Juno's body, are 29ft (9 metres) long and, when combined, have a solar area of more than 65ft (60 metres) squared.

Individually there are 18,698 solar cells spread across the arrays that provide around 500 watts of electricity when the craft is close to the fifth planet from the sun. When it was near Earth it was able to produce a power output of 14 kilowatts.

At the point the spacecraft entered orbit it was travelling at 130,000mph in Earth speeds. It became the fastest ever man-made craft. When it launched, the space vessel was carrying 2,821 pounds (1,280kg) of fuel and weighed 7,992 pounds (3,625kg) in total.

It is also the first spacecraft to fly with 3D-printed titanium parts.

At the end of the mission, after the 37th orbit of the planet, Juno will be shot below the clouds of Northern Jupiter. The spacecraft isn't designed to operate inside the atmosphere of the planet and will burn up in February 2018.

Despite the fact it has only just arrived at the planet, Juno has already been busy. Last week it beamed back a recording of the sound of solar wind around the gas giant.

Dubbed the 'roar' of Jupiter, the recording was made during what's know as the "bow shock".

The shock is where the supersonic solar wind is heated and slowed by Jupiter's magnetic atmosphere. "It is analogous to a sonic boom on Earth," Nasa says, which estimates the magnetic field to be 20,000 times as powerful as Earth's field.

The Juno Mission

9:16pm EDT (1:16am GMT) Monday
Juno made its first turn towards the correct position needed to enter orbit. Another was made at 10:28pm EDT (2:28am GMT)
10:56pm EDT (2:56am GMT)
The spin rate of the Juno probe increased from two to five RPM to increase its stability ahead of its engine burn
11:18pm EDT (3:18am GMT)
Juno began its 35-minute engine burn, designed to slow its trajectory by around 1,212 mph to allow it to be "captured" by the gravitational pull of Jupiter
11:53pm EDT (3:53am GMT)
The so-called "orbit-insertion burn" ended Juno dropped its spin rate back down to two RPM
12:16am EDT (4:16am GMT)
Juno began sending telemetry data back to Earth for the first time. It currently takes 48 minutes for the transmissions to travel from Jupiter to Earth