Juno

After a five-year journey from Earth, Juno arrived at Jupiter in July 2016. It will orbit Jupiter 37 times over the course of 20 months, eventually self-destructing in February 2018.

Juno is only the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, after the Galileo probe which orbited from 1995 to 2003.

The huge array of solar panels covers 60m².

The purpose of this mission is to learn more about the formation and structure of Jupiter and, by extension, the formation and history of the entire Solar System. Specific objectives include:

• Determine the abundance of water in the planet.
• Estimate the mass of Jupiter's core.
• Map Jupiter's gravitational and magnetic fields.
• Study atmospheric composition, temperature, structure, cloud opacity and dynamics.