NASA launched its Juno mission on July 4, and in the past weeks, we have seen the first pictures sent from Juno. The pictures, sent on July 10th, were taken when Juno was an astonishing 2.7 million miles from Jupiter. The most exciting part of this news is that JunoCam survived the radiation emanating from the gas giant.
This first leg of its outbound journey is a trek amongst the stars that will take 53.5 days for this capture mission.The image shows atmospheric features on Jupiter, including the Great Red Spot, and three of Jupiter’s four largest moons.
JunoCam will continue to take photos of Jupiter and its moons during the whole trip, and there will be the first high-resolution photos available on August 27th. This mission, and the Mars Rover have done lots to bring space news to the masses in a fun and engaging way, with this Juno mission in particular. Jupiter, named after the Roman god, was the king of the Roman gods and he was known for his many lovers and paramours. A number of the moons around Jupiter are named for these lovers, so NASA named this satellite after Jupiter’s wife, Juno. So NASA sent Jupiter’s wife to check in on him.
Be sure to check out more info at NASA’s Juno website and Mission Juno.
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