The American space agency NASA recently announced that it is "sailing full-steam ahead in solar system investigation." The team is hopeful that the findings of the mission will help answer fundamental questions about the universe, how the solar system came into existence and where it is going and whether or not it is one of its own kinds in the universe.
NASA made the announcement ahead of the day when its Juno spacecraft is scheduled to take close-up images of the giant gaseous planet, Jupiter. The spacecraft is expected to make a close pass of the planet on August 27.
According to NASA researchers, Juno is one of the extraordinary objects present in the solar system that the space agency looks forward to. The team believes that Juno holds a number of clues to how the solar system came into existence. There are a number of similar objects present in the solar system that NASA is eager to explore in their current and future space missions.
The space agency is set to launch James Webb Space Telescope in 2018. It is a powerful telescope that the astrophysicists could potentially use to observe not only the faintest objects in the sky but also the planets along with their moons. The telescope has a great spectral and angular resolution that will allow the researchers, astronomers, and astrophysicists to observe distant targets and even observe the geological activity.
Juno, the Mars 2020 rover, and the Dawn are some of the current missions that the space agency is working on. The team at NASA will launch OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) in September 2016. For the first time in the history of astronomy, the space agency will send a spacecraft to an asteroid near Earth called Bennu. It will return in 2023 to Earth along with a few samples.
