Fly with NASA's Juno Mission to Jupiter

Fly along with Juno five days before its arrival at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. The spacecraft traveled five years to get to this point.

This is Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. More than 1,000 Earths would fit inside it! Jupiter is called a gas giant planet. It is made up of mostly hydrogen and helium, just like the sun. The planet is covered in thick, swirling clouds that hide what’s below.

Juno is our robotic explorer at Jupiter. The spacecraft uses special instruments to peer beneath the clouds. It rotates twice a minute for stability, like a spinning top. Juno's mission is to learn how Jupiter formed and how the planet works from the outside to the inside. 

The sun is a star, a hot ball of glowing gases at the center of our solar system. Jupiter is five times farther from the sun than Earth. This far out, it's darker, and much, much colder than what we're used to. 

Now we're flying with the Juno spacecraft during one of its many orbits of Jupiter. 

Juno is the first solar-powered spacecraft  at Jupiter. Just as light dims as you move away from it, sunlight becomes less intense the farther a spacecraft travels from the sun.  That’s why engineers designed Juno with three extra large solar panels.

One of Jupiter’s most recognizable features is this swirling, crimson-colored storm twice as wide as Earth. We don't know if Jupiter’s storms go deep into the atmosphere, or if they're shallow, but Juno’s sensitive instruments are helping us find out.

Juno passes just 3,000 miles above Jupiter's clouds—closer than any other spacecraft has come before. Juno is flying go over the poles, giving the first close-up look at that part of the planet.

Close encounters allow Juno to map Jupiter's gravity, magnetic field, and water content. They also help Juno avoid the worst of Jupiter's radiation—tiny charged particles whizzing around the planet that can damage electronics.

How much water is in Jupiter’s atmosphere? That depends on what conditions were like in the very early history of our solar system, when Jupiter formed. Earth formed after Jupiter, so Juno is helping us understand part of our own planet's story, too.

Here are two views of Juno: what it looks like on the outside and how you would see it if you had X-ray vision.

The three panels are solar arrays, each about 30 feet long. Juno would just fit inside a pro basketball court. Why so big? Jupiter is so far from the sun that sunlight here is 25 times weaker than at Earth.

See the saucer-shaped antenna on top? It's the main way we communicate with Juno from Earth. The antenna is also how Juno sends and receives  radio signals to measure Jupiter's gravity field.

Below the antenna is "the vault"—a titanium box with half-inch thick walls. Inside are Juno’s sensitive electronics. The vault is like a suit of armor that protects Juno's brain and heart from deadly, fast-moving particles in the radiation belts.

Some of Juno's science instruments are mounted to the top and bottom decks of the spacecraft, while others look out from the sides, between the solar arrays.

This is Juno’s camera, called JunoCam. It is designed to capture color pictures of Jupiter’s cloud tops in visible light, meaning the images look like what you would see if you were an astronaut visiting Jupiter.

The Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) is providing a visual and thermal (infrared) view of Jupiter’s massive aurora. Jupiter's auroras are hundreds of times more powerful than Earth’s, and they form a glowing ring around each pole that's bigger than our home planet.

Now you're inside the X-ray view of Juno.

The round blue and green tanks hold rocket fuel to help Juno adjust course when needed. Juno’s controllers can adjust the spacecraft orientation to make sure the antennas, solar arrays and instruments point in the direction they are supposed to. 

The pink tanks hold helium, to pressurize the fuel system. The helium tanks play an important role in the firing of the spacecraft’s main engine.

The titanium vault on Juno blocks the high-energy particles surrounding Jupiter from damaging Juno’s electronic brains. The multicolored boxes are electronics in the vault. Beyond them is the honeycomb structure of the main antenna. 

The main engine was used to maneuver Juno on the way to Jupiter.  Later, when Juno reached its destination, the main engine slowed the spacecraft so the planet's gravity could capture the spacecraft and bring it into orbit.

While there are no astronauts on board, Juno does carry special passengers. These Lego minifigures, made of aluminum, represent the Roman god Jupiter and goddess Juno. There’s also the astronomer Galileo, who was the first explorer to study Jupiter with a telescope.