Mighty Planet Jupiter & Third-largest Moon Io | NASA's Juno Mission | JPL

Mighty Planet Jupiter & Third-largest Moon Io | NASA's Juno Mission | JPL

Fifth in line from the Sun, Jupiter is, by far, the largest planet in the solar system—more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. Jupiter has more than 75 moons.

Jupiter has a long history of surprising scientists—all the way back to 1610 when Galileo Galilei found the first moons beyond Earth. This discovery changed the way we see the universe. Jupiter's familiar stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.

Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the solar system, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains dozens of miles (or kilometers) high. Io is caught in a tug-of-war between Jupiter's massive gravity and the smaller but precisely timed pulls from two neighboring moons that orbit farther from Jupiter—Europa and Ganymede.

Juno Mission Profile

Launched: Aug. 5, 2011

Arrival at Jupiter: July 4, 2016

Goal: Understand origin and evolution of Jupiter, look for solid planetary core, map magnetic field, measure water and ammonia in deep atmosphere, observe auroras.

Learn more about the Juno mission at: www.nasa.gov/juno

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Juno mission for NASA. The mission's principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The mission is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Southwest Research Institute (SwRI)/Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS)

Processing: Kevin M. Gill

Release Date: May 23, 2023

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