NASA - JUNO Mission logo.
May 18, 2017
Image above: This view of Jupiter, taken by the JunoCam imager of NASA’s Juno spacecraft, highlights Oval BA -- a massive storm known as the Little Red Spot. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Bjorn Jonsson.
NASA's Juno spacecraft will make its fifth science flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops on Thursday, May 18, at 11 p.m. PDT (Friday, May 19, 2 a.m. EDT and 6:00 UTC). At the time of perijove (defined as the point in Juno’s orbit when it is closest to the planet's center), the spacecraft will have logged 63.5 million miles (102 million kilometers) in Jupiter’s orbit and will be about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops.
Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops -- as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Juno Spacecraft Pass of Jupiter. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.
More information on the Juno mission is available at:
https://www.nasa.gov/juno
http://missionjuno.org
The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno
http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno
Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Dwayne Brown/Laurie Cantillo/Tony Greicius/JPL/DC Agle.
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