Jupiter features the largest and most powerful auroral display in the Solar System. As spectacular as they are, however, very little is known about these dancing displays of Southern and Northern lights. A recent survey by NASA’s Juno spacecraft is providing new evidence about Jupiter’s auroras—and it’s becoming…
Are they stars? Are they lost planets? Brown dwarfs, the galaxy’s dark, wandering orbs, are some of space’s most perplexing features. They’re larger than Jupiter but smaller than stars, glow on their own and, well, they’re just really strange. A new analysis seems to explain at least a few of their mysteries.
Despite our squabbles here on Earth, the universe is full of so much beauty it’s almost stupid. Jupiter is perhaps the most unreasonably beautiful thing in our entire solar system, and it’s not shy about flexing. Recently, citizen scientists/JunoCam superstars Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran created one of the most…
Praise Cthulhu! NASA’s Juno spacecraft has just delivered the most incredible images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot—and that’s a really high bar to clear. The spacecraft has spent the last year beaming back some of the most mind-blowing images of the gas giant. But today’s batch marks a historic moment for the orbiter,…
Jupiter is the biggest, angriest cup of coffee in the solar system. In snapshots from NASA’s Juno spacecraft, Jupiter’s swirling clouds look divinely creamy—but the planet is anything but placid. Jovian storms, chaotic and spectacular as they are, offer a stark reminder of how awesome and terrifying the universe…
Jupiter has just delivered the news we desperately need right now. In addition to being the biggest, oldest planet in the solar system, it turns out Jupe has been hiding two moons from us all these years. Recently, a group of astronomers spotted the pair of wayward satellites, bringing the number of Jupiter’s known…
Of the eight planets in our solar system, Jupiter is indubitably the most swole. It is large, with a radius of 43,440 miles (69,911 kilometers). It also has a bit of a rage problem, as the planet’s constantly shifting storms are notoriously chaotic. While the Jovian origin story has always been a bit of a mystery, a…
Juno’s first major information dump revealed some incredible insights into our big ol’ friend, Jupiter. A few close approaches from the NASA spacecraft show that the gas giant has extremely chaotic storms and can generate aurorae in ways Earth can’t, among other oddities. In short, Jupiter is the wild west of the…
There’s no drama quite like space drama. And Juno’s flight to Jupiter has been about as dramatic as a sci-fi thriller can get. Last October, Juno’s engine system malfunctioned, causing NASA to delay the orbiter’s planned approach into a 14-day “science orbit.” This February, NASA decided to forego the science orbit…
Io is the closest thing we have to hell in our Solar System, a Jovian moon that features hundreds of active volcanoes and expansive lakes filled with lava. New observations suggests that the largest of these lakes, Loki Patera, produces enormous waves that repeatedly flow around the molten surface.
Lingering sense of ennui creeping in? Concerned about our crumbling infrastructure? Allow me to temporarily assuage your problems by offering up some lovely images of Jupiter. They won’t solve anything, but they just might help you get through the day without shouting into a stranger’s face or kicking over a traffic…
Using the Very Large Telescope array, an international team of astronomers has discovered a previously undetected cold spot on Jupiter. Measuring 8,700 miles wide and 7,500 miles across, the mysterious spot is bigger than the Earth itself. Intriguingly, the weather anomaly is likely being generated by Jupiter’s…
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has sent back the most mesmerizing images from Jupiter. The pictures are so good they’ve created a community of citizen scientists who enhance the orbiter’s raw images and make them into literal works of art. While the colorized images are always spectacular, this time, citizen scientist Roman…
Most asteroids orbit the Sun in a counterclockwise fashion, but a newly-discovered object nicknamed Bee-Zed goes against the grain, spinning around the Solar System the opposite way. Not only that, it frequently ventures within Jupiter’s orbital space—putting it on a potential collision course with the gas giant and…
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has consistently been coming through with the best close-up images of Jupiter we’ve ever seen. But a newly released, enhanced-color image of a large dark spot might be the most ethereal of all—its swirling, colorful clouds make it seem like a Jovian Van Gogh.
They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but for JUICE—a European Space Agency-led, Jupiter-bound probe scheduled to launch in 2022—the quickest route will involve a rather convoluted journey requiring four gravitational assists with three different planets.
Sure, things are pretty whacky here on Earth, but they’re nothing compared to the gigantic storm twice as wide as our own planet raging on Jupiter. The area just west of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is both dazzling and chaotic, filled with swirling clouds of mystery. Now, thanks to NASA’s Juno spacecraft—and a very…
NASA’s Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft hasn’t been able to catch a break lately. This past October, Juno suffered a malfunction with a pair of helium valves, causing NASA to delay an engine burn that would have brought the spacecraft into its “science orbit.” Today, after months of evaluation, NASA announced that it…
Today, India blew away all previous records for launching multiple satellites at one time. Watching each of these little guys with their own individual purposes flood the sky and kick the country’s space program into overdrive is just as neat as it sounds.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has once again delivered stunning images of Jupiter, this time giving us a glimpse at the gas giant’s south pole. The image, taken from Juno’s most recent flyby on February 2nd, was captured at an altitude 63,400 miles. While there aren’t any Jovian penguins on this south pole (that we know of),…
