ESA’s JUICE set to explore Jupiter’s mysterious moons

ESA’s JUICE set to explore Jupiter’s mysterious moons

​Astronomers have always been fascinated by the gas giant Jupiter. A planet over 1000 times the size of Earth with 63 natural moons, 4 of whom are nearly as big as planets themselves, Jupiter and its moons are considered to be a mini solar system and are popularly…

New maps of Jupiter reveal the Great Red Spot continues to shrink

New maps of Jupiter reveal the Great Red Spot continues to shrink

NASA's scientists have produced new maps of Jupiter from images collected by the Hubble Space Telescope. Newly composed maps are the first in a series of yearly images of the Solar System's outer planets, designed to keep track of how these giant worlds…

Auroral substorms on Jupiter are not caused by the solar wind, alone

Auroral substorms on Jupiter are not caused by the solar wind, alone

A previous Picture of the Day published in late 2012 quoted Jonathan Nichols from the University of Leicester:“The main aurora oval on Jupiter we think should dim when the solar wind blows harder, but what we see is that actually gets brighter, which is totally

Scientists identify missing wave near Jupiter’s equator

Scientists identify missing wave near Jupiter’s equator

In the clouds of Jupiter, scientists have found evidence of a type of atmospheric wave that had long been proposed but had not been identified in images before now.Researchers consider this kind of wave, called a Kelvin wave, a fundamental part of a planetary atmosphere

Swarm of scientific microprobes to the clouds of Jupiter in 2030

Swarm of scientific microprobes to the clouds of Jupiter in 2030

A swarm of tiny probes each equipped with a different sensor could be fired into the clouds of Jupiter and grab data as they fall before burning up in the gas giant planet's atmosphere, according to a recently presented concept in International Journal of Space Scie

Observations suggest frequent massive eruptions on Jupiter’s moon Io

Observations suggest frequent massive eruptions on Jupiter’s moon Io

Observations made using Keck and Gemini observatories, Hawaii, revealed three massive volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io within a two-week period in August 2013, leading astronomers to speculate that these presumed rare "outbursts" migh

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot shrinking at increasing rate

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot shrinking at increasing rate

The shrinkage of Jupiter's Great Red Spot has been known about since the 1930s but latest images by Hubble Space Telescope confirm the increasing shrinkage rate observed by amateur astronomers since 2012. Science has no answer as to why this is happening.H

Ganymede may harbor ice and oceans stacked up in several layers

Ganymede may harbor ice and oceans stacked up in several layers

The largest moon in our solar system, a companion to Jupiter named Ganymede, might have ice and oceans stacked up in several layers like a club sandwich, according to new study led by JPL's Steve Vance that models the moon's makeup.Previously, the moon

Hubble captures Jupiter's moon Europa in 200 km high water eruption

Hubble captures Jupiter's moon Europa in 200 km high water eruption

Data from the Hubble space telescope suggests that enormous jets of water, more than 200 kilometers tall, may be spurting intermittently from the surface of Europa, ice-shelled moon of Jupiter.

Although it’s been known since 2005 that

SOHO observes an amazing solar eclipse of Jupiter on June 19, 2013

SOHO observes an amazing solar eclipse of Jupiter on June 19, 2013

On June 19, 2013 NASA`s SOHO coronagraphs observed an eclipse of Jupiter by the Sun, as the planet got directly behind the solar disk; being totally obscured. This event is a rare Jupiter solar conjunction, that happens only twice within Jupiter`s 12-year orbit around