Jupiter Will Never Stop Surprising Scientists
NASA’s Juno mission keeps churning out stunning images of the gas planet’s clouds—and more mysteries about what lurks underneath.
For the last year and a half, the NASA spacecraft Juno has been circling Jupiter and collecting reams of data. Juno spends most of its time a good distance away from Jupiter, safe from the worst of the planet’s intense radiation belts. But once every orbit, the spacecraft comes swooping toward Jupiter and directs its instruments—protected by 400 pounds of titanium—toward the perpetually stormy clouds that cover its surface. Then it zooms back out.
One of those instruments, a camera called JunoCam, has produced dozens of mesmerizing photographs of Jupiter, look like something out of Van Gogh’s .
