Space and astronomy news
Processed image taken by JunoCam on Feb. 3rd, 2024, during the probe's second close flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io. Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSShas revealed some fascinating things about Jupiter since it began exploring the system on July 4th, 2016. Not only is it the first robotic mission to study Jupiter up close while orbiting it since the, which studied the gas giant and its satellites from 1995 to 2003.
The previous flyby occurred on December 30th, 2023, and brought the spacecraft within 1,500 km of Io’s surface. The twoduring the flyby that occurred on October 15th, 2023, where the probe reached a minimum distance of 12,000 km from the moon’s surface. No spacecraft has passed this close to Io since theImage of Io taken by the JunoCam on Dec. 30th, 2023, and processed by citizen scientist Emma Wälimäki.