NASA's Juno spacecraft has captured the first up, close and personal photograph of the giant planet in the solar system, Jupiter. The Juno probe entered Jupiter's orbit last week.
The photo captured by the Juno spacecraft clearly shows the giant red spot on the gaseous planet, the clouds that surround the giant celestial body and three of its moons - Io, Europa, and Ganymede. The spacecraft captured the photo of the planet and its moons with the help of its visible-light JunoCam instrument on July 10, Sunday.
At the time when the photo was captured, Juno probe was 2.7 million miles away from the planet, according to a report released by NASA officials. The officials further said that the appearance of the photograph indicates that the spacecraft successfully passed through the extreme radiation environment of Jupiter, without any decay and degradation.
Therefore, the probe is ready to deal with Jupiter now, the researchers believe. The team at NASA is now desperately waiting to catch a glimpse of Jupiter's pole next.
Juno travelled through deep space for almost five years to finally enter Jupiter's orbit on July 4, 2016. During the orbital insertion that lasted for almost 35 minutes, all of the device and instruments aboard spacecraft were turned off to avoid the chances of any kind of mishap. Juno then slowly started to turn on its instruments and the cam was finally powered up on June 10.
As of now, the spacecraft is drifting away from the planet to more distant parts of the orbit. The next closest pass to Jupiter will take place on August 27 and that is the day when the cam aboard the Juno spacecraft will take the first high-resolution pictures of the planet.
