Juno’s Jupiter journey CONTINUES

For the last five years the undisputed king of the planets has been watched over by the Juno spacecraft. During its swooping passes, the NASA orbiter has imaged the upper cloud deck and peered into the planet’s depths, mapping out the gas giant’s magnetic and gravitational structure to create a three-dimensional picture of the Solar System’s largest planet.

The mission was originally intended to meet its fiery end this August, crashing into Jupiter’s atmosphere. But in January Juno was granted a reprieve and the mission has been extended to September 2025.

Juno’s original end date was predicted based on the number of orbits required to map out Jupiter before the intense radiation created by the planet’s massive magnetic field ravaged the probe’s electronics. To protect Juno as long as possible, the most important components were locked inside a vault made of 1cm-thick titanium, designed to stop all but the most energetic radiation.

Scott Bolton from the Southwest Research Institute, Juno’s Principal