August 5, 2022
On this date in 2011, the NASA spacecraft Juno launched from Cape Canaveral. Juno arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016 – just under five years from its launch. The primary mission was to explore beyond the dense clouds of the gas giant to answer questions about the origins of the solar system. Juno is still at Jupiter, providing data and images. There is a camera onboard dedicated to public outreach, giving citizen scientists the opportunity to process images of Jupiter and its satellites.
The above images were all processed by citizen scientists using JunoCam’s raw data. Left: A Juno image of Jupiter’s North Pole taken during the most recent flyby on July 5, 2022. Center: A Juno image of Ganymede during a flyby of the moon in June 2021. The image shows the crater Kittu with dark ejecta which is thought to be contamination from the impactor. Right: A Juno image taken on October 16, 2021, from 2,196 mi (3,534 km) above Jupiter’s atmosphere. Image credit left/right: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Brian Swift, center: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Thomas Thomopoulos