The Juno probe has completed its five-year journey to Jupiter. The craft will hopefully deliver answers about the planet's mysterious weather, poles and composition.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/NASA
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NASA's Juno space probe made history on Saturday by flying closer to Jupiter than any spacecraft has done before. Juno swung about 2,600 miles (4,200 kilometers) away from the solar system's largest planet, sending back data and images.
"We are in an orbit nobody has ever been in before, and these images give us a whole new perspective on this gas-giant world," said Scott Bolton, head of the Juno team.
Spacecraft Juno spies on Jupiter
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Bolton added that NASA will release its new images within a couple of days.
The Juno mission first came close to Jupiter last month after spending five years on a journey to study the origins of the solar system. The probe's next objective is to examine the many atmospheric layers of Jupiter and determine its composition and magnetic field.
Juno was also expected to send back important new data about Jupiter's Great Red Spot and its mysterious north and south poles. Scientists also hope to gain new insight into the planet's strong winds and whether or not the giant is completely gaseous or has a solid core.
The spacecraft will make 35 more close flybys of Jupiter until its main mission comes to an end in February 2018, after which Juno will go directly into the planet's atmosphere and self-destruct.
A tiny planet Mercury before the huge sun
One of the smallest planets in our solar system is passing across the sun's face. This is a rare event to observe: it only happens every thirteen to fourteen years on average.
Image: NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Everybody's looking for the little black dot
A tiny black spot - this is how Mercury looks in front of the solar disk, which it passed on Monday. It took the planet more than seven hours to travel the entire length.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/K.-J. Hildenbrand
View from Bavaria
An astronomer took those pictures with an 800mm telescope from Kempten in the Allgäu region of Bavaria. The sun is shining with such intensity that the planet is reduced to a small shadow. Even this picture could only be taken because the telescope has been darkened with a special sunray-filter.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Jansen
Zooming in
This picture is from 2006. Italy's National Institute of Astrophysics took it during a previous Mercury flyby. At least here it is easy to distinguish between the planet and frequently ocurring sunspots, or coronal mass ejections, which also appear as dark spots on the surface of the sun. The planet, however, is clearly round with sharp edges before the background of solar flares.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/INAF
How to get even closer
Only a spacecraft will do. NASA's spacecraft Messenger took the best pictures of Mercury so far. The probe circled the planet from 2011 to 2015 until it finally crashed there.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Just like the Moon?
Messenger found a planet with a surface which does not look too differently from our Earth-Moon - at first glance: rock, sand, gravel and lots of craters left behind by meteorite impacts. But there are big differences, too: temperatures on Mercury are much more extreme. Because there is practically no atmosphere, it can get icy cold. On the other hand, the sun can make it extremely hot.
Image: NASA, JHU APL, CIW
Mercury in all its beauty
This picture is a composite from thousands of pictures taken by different spectrometers in the course of countless orbits around the planet. For the first time, there is a really high-resolution image of Mercury.
Image: Reuters/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Messenger's final resting place
This area shows the eventual crash site where Messenger came down in 2015. Clearly visible: meteorite impact craters of all sizes.
Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Highland plains in sunshine
The astronomers who have watched Monday's Mercury flyby did not see pictures like this. The photo taken by Messenger shows an area of plains formed by volcanic activity. The different colors indicate different rock materials.
Image: NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Institution of Washington
