NASA’s JunoCam shares remarkable pictures of Jupiter with its moons

JunoCam in a series of photographs has shared some of the first images of Jupiter along with three of its four largest moons taken after the spacecraft entered orbit around the king of planets on July 4. JunoCam is the camera aboard NASA's Juno mission.

Juno's visible-light camera was turned on six days after Juno fired its main engine and placed itself into orbit around the largest planetary inhabitant of our solar system.

“This scene from JunoCam indicates it survived its first pass through Jupiter's extreme radiation environment without any degradation and is ready to take on Jupiter,” said Scott Bolton, from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

This new view was taken when the spacecraft was 4.3 million kilometres from Jupiter on the outbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit.

In the color image atmospheric features are shown on Jupiter, including the famous Great Red Spot, and three of the massive planet's four largest moons - Io, Europa and Ganymede, from left to right in the image.

However, first high-resolution images of the planet will be taken on August 27 when Juno makes its next close pass to Jupiter.

About JunoCam

JunoCam is is a colour, visible-light camera which is designed to capture remarkable pictures of Jupiter's poles and cloud tops. Cam’s images are helpful for the scientists and now the Juno team are working on placing the images taken by JunoCam on the mission's website, where the public can access them.

Juno will study Jupiter’s auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. And it will also probe beneath the obscuringcloud cover of Jupiter.