Jupiter and its moons are a diverse and dynamic subdivision of our solar system’s neighborhood, one that NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been visiting since 2016. Besides hosting the system’s largest planet, at over 300 times the mass of our own planet, the Jovian system includes 95 known moons, the largest of which are intriguing venues for understanding the evolution of our solar system and the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
Two of the moons—Io and Europa—are polar opposites. One is covered in volcanoes and lava lakes while the other is an icy body which probably contains a huge subsurface ocean. With as much time flying around the Jovian system as a two-term president, Juno continues to pull back the curtain on the mysteries that remain on the gassy, gritty bodies about 484 million miles from Earth. Here are some of the best images Juno has captured of Jupiter and its most prominent moons.
