NASA's Juno sends back first view from Jupiter's orbit
Juno will eventually get closer to Jupiter than any satellite in history -- but it's already sending back exciting images.
The probe's visible-light camera, known as JunoCam, was switched on six days after it arrived at Jupiter.
The first image from orbit was obtained from JunoCam on July 10 at 1:30 p.m. ET, when the spacecraft was 2.7 million miles from Jupiter on the outbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit, NASA says.
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The view below, made from the first images sent back from Juno, depicts atmospheric features on the planet, including the Great Red Spot, as well as three of Jupiter's four largest moons: Io, Europa and Ganymede.
"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," Scott Bolton, principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said.
"We can't wait to see the first view of Jupiter's poles."
It will be several weeks until NASA gets high-resolution images of Jupiter from the satellite. The first will be taken on Aug. 27, when Juno makes its next close pass to the planet.
It's thought that Juno -- which is the first probe to orbit Jupiter since the end of the Galileo mission in 2003 -- will discover more moons orbiting Jupiter during its mission.
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Tim Chester was Senior Editor, Real Time News in Los Angeles. Before that he was Deputy Editor of Mashable UK in London. Prior to joining Mashable, Tim was a Senior Web Editor at Penguin Random House, helping to relaunch the Rough Guides website and other travel brands. He was also a writer for Buzzfeed, GQ and The Sunday Times, covering everything from culture to tech and current affairs. Before that, he was Deputy Editor at NME.COM, overseeing content and development on the London-based music and entertainment site. Tim loves music and travel and has combined these two passions at festivals from Iceland to Malawi and beyond.
