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Jupiter

A collection of pictures of the planet Jupiter
taken from the planet's orbit.

On October 18, 1989, NASA's Galileo probe was launched from the space shuttle Atlantis. On December 8, 1995, Galileo became the first probe to orbit Jupiter.

Galileo stayed in orbit for almost eight years. The most famous pictures of the mission were those of Jupiter's moons.

On August 5, 2011 NASA launched the Juno spacecraft, which was inserted into a polar orbit on July 5, 2016 and has delivered stunning pictures ever since.

Artist’s concept of Juno in Jupiter's orbit. Source: Johns Hopkins APL

Galileo encountered a problem with its High Gain Antenna which caused massive problems for the graphics-sensitive weather monitoring (Source: JTG). As far as photography is concerned, the probe is therefor best remembered for its stunning images of Jupiter's moons.


Io
July 3, 1999


Europa
September 7, 1996


Ganymede
January 18, 1999


Callisto
August 22, 2001
Our collection of pictures of Jupiter's moons starts at the next page.

Ever since Juno entered orbit, the world has been receiving stunning images of unprecedented resolution. Here are our favorites.



Chaotic Clouds of Jupiter
June 21, 2018
Source: NASA


Tumultuous Clouds of Jupiter
May 29, 2019
Source: JPL / NASA


Jupiter Abyss
May 29, 2019
Source: JPL / NASA

Colors on the Wind, September 11, 2019
Source: JPL / NASA
Storm on the Horizon, July 20, 2019
Source: JPL / NASA


Jupiter Spiral
February 12, 2019
Source: JPL / NASA


Two Massive Storms
December 21, 2018
Source: JPL / NASA


Jupiter Blues
October 24, 2017
Source: NASA


Cropped image of the closest approach
Source: Newsweek


July 11, 2017
Source: NASA


July 11, 2017
Source: vox.com / NASA


July 11, 2017
Source: vox.com / NASA
On July 10, 2017, Juno flew just 9,000 km (5,600 miles) above Jupiter’s most recognizable feature: the Great Red Spot and delivered the closest view at this centuries old storm to date (pictures above)

Recently, Juno's mission has been extended until 2021. Eventually, like the Galileo probe before, Juno will be directed towards the planet and will burn up in its atmosphere to avoid accidental contamination of Jupiter's moons.

Due to its polar orbit, Juno also took the first closeup pictures of the planet's polar regions (pictures right).



South Pole
Mosaic of images taken in 2017
Source: NASA / Planetary Society


North Pole
Mosaic of images taken in 2017
Source: NASA / Planetary Society

At the latest count, Jupiter has 79 known moons.

Several spacecraft delivered high resolution pictures of the four Galilean moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

We devoted extra pages to each of the four large moons, starting with Io.


Click here to return to Jupiter flyby pictures Click here to move on to Jupiter's moon Io

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