American space agency NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) never fails to amaze us with their updates. Now, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA has shared a video on Instagram which gives a glimpse of gas giant Jupiter.
The footage has been captured by NASA's Juno mission during its close fly-by. It has been shot 2,500 miles (3,200 kilometres) above Jupiter on April 9.
This was Juno's 41st fly-by above Jupiter and the spacecraft at a speed of 210,000 kilometres per hour relative to the planet. That is more than seven times faster than the speed of the International Space Station (ISS).
The video in the form of an animated sequence, posted by NASA on Instagram, has been created by Citizen Scientist Andrea Luck using the JunoCam picture data in its raw form, the agency said in a statement. "Take a ride with #JunoMission," according to the caption of Thursday's post.
The Juno spacecraft had completed another fly-by of Jupiter, capturing a stunning image of the planet's southern hemisphere. A closer examination of the photograph revealed two additional celestial bodies nearby: Jupiter's moons Io and Europa.
Jupiter, the biggest planet in the solar system, has 53 recognised moons and another 26 that have yet to be named. Although the rocky moon lo is the solar system's most volcanic globe, Europa's frozen surface conceals a huge ocean of liquid water underneath it.
According to NASA, Juno will have a closer and more detailed look at Europa in September this year when it makes the closest fly-by of the enigmatic moon in decades.
Juno was launched by NASA in August, 2011, on a five-year journey. It reached Jupiter in July, 2016. It will continue its investigation of the solar system's largest planet for the next three years, or 2025, when the mission is scheduled to end.
