NASA / JPL; NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Rita Najm © (CC BY)
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin Gill
NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured new images of Jupiter’s moon Io during its latest flyby, coming within an eerily close distance of the most volcanically active world in the solar system for a second time in less than two months. The close encounter also shows what appears to be a pair of plumes erupting from the…
NASA / SwRI / MSSS / Jackie Branc
Fresh off of its first asteroid encounter that revealed a bonus space rock, Lucy is now ready for the big leagues. The NASA spacecraft began maneuvering its way to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, traveling to a farther orbit in deep space in order to reach the Jovian system.
There are jets in Jupiter’s magnetosheath, according to Voyager 2 mission data from 1979. The 45-year-old information is now revealing the dynamics of the plasma stream.
The mutilated surface of Jupiter’s moon Io was revealed in great detail by the Juno spacecraft, which has been exploring the Jovian system since 2016 and recently pulled off the closest flyby of the volcanic world.
NASA’s curious Jupiter probe is getting chummier with the planet’s most erratic moon, Io. The Juno spacecraft will carry out the closest encounter any mission has had with the volcanic moon in over 20 years, collecting valuable clues about its mysterious activity.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, K. Luhman (Penn State University), and C. Alves de Oliveira (ESA)
For centuries, astronomers were limited to ground-based observations of the planets, but now we use spacecraft to capture close-up views of our neighboring worlds. Excitingly, our views of solar system planets have been getting progressively better over the decades, as these images attest.