Juno spacecraft peers deep into Jupiter’s atmosphere before entering safe mode

Artist’s conception of Juno orbiting Jupiter. Image Credit: NASA
Artist’s conception of Juno orbiting Jupiter. Image Credit: NASA

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been busy orbiting Jupiter and providing fantastic new views of this giant world, something not possible since the previous Galileo mission. While almost flawless so far, the mission has had a few hiccups recently. Juno entered safe mode just shortly before its next close flyby of Jupiter this week, apparently the result of a software performance monitor inducing a reboot of the spacecraft’s onboard computer. The spacecraft is otherwise healthy and Juno is conducting its own software diagnostics to determine the specific cause of the problem. Before this, Juno took its first observations deep into Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere.

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Image Gallery: New views of Jupiter’s poles from Juno

Partial view of Jupiter's south pole. Image Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Matt Brealey
Partial view of Jupiter’s south pole. Click image for larger version. Image Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Matt Brealey

The Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter has been sending back some beautiful new views of Jupiters north and south poles, not seen before in detail until now. This is still very early in the mission and there will be many more and better ones to come! The intricate swirls of storms and other clouds make the polar regions distinctly different from the banded equatorial and mid-latitude regions which we are used to seeing. Thanks to Matt Brealey for the use of his processed NASA images. More of his work is on his blog The State of Space.

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NASA’s Juno spacecraft enters orbit around Jupiter, the ‘King of Planets’

Artist’s conception of Juno approaching Jupiter. Image Credit: NASA
Artist’s conception of Juno approaching Jupiter. Image Credit: NASA

Jupiter has often been referred to as the King of Planets, and for good reason, as it is a massive gas giant, much larger than Earth and the largest planet in our Solar System. It is more than 2.5 times as massive as all the other planets combined, and is a mesmerizing world of colourful bands of clouds wrapping around the globe, which can be seen even in a small telescope, but exhibit incredible detail when seen by spacecraft. Jupiter is also itself the center of a sort of miniature solar system, with dozens of moons orbiting around it. We’ve seen this world up close before by spacecraft such as Voyager and Galileo, but now a new visitor has arrived in the Jovian system: NASA’s spacecraft Juno.

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