Juno

Juno launched on August 5, 2011, and arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016, threading itself into a daring polar orbit that dives between the planet and its lethal radiation belts every 53 days. It was the first solar-powered spacecraft sent to the outer solar system, its three 30-foot arrays squeezing power from sunlight 25 times weaker than at Earth.

Juno’s instruments peer beneath the cloud tops, revealing that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot runs hundreds of miles deep, that its core is strangely ‘fuzzy’ and dilute, and that geometric storms cluster at its poles like roses. The JunoCam imager, operated with the public choosing its targets, has produced some of the most striking planetary images ever taken. The extended mission added close flybys of the moons Ganymede, Europa, and Io.