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Scientists who study the nerves of Jupiter and space fascinated by the gaseous giant have spent a busy and exciting month. Yesterday, a team of researchers announced the discovery of 12 new Jovian moons, bringing the total of Jupiter to 79. Last week, scientists revealed that data from NASA's $ 1 billion Juno mission suggested a volcano unexplored on the moon of Jupiter. . And last month, the team behind Juno realized that Jupiter's lighting looked more like the Earth's than previously thought – which solved a 39-year-old mystery.
But the most exciting, NASA confirmed in June that Juno, who took off from Jupiter since July 2015, will cheat death for at least another three years. The probe was to fall into Jupiter's clouds this month, but the mission was extended at least until July 2021.
This gives scientists a chance to complete the main goal of the mission: to map the magnetic and gravitational fields of Jupiter.
This work is done by flying Juno over Jupiter's cloud tops at speeds about 75 times faster than a bullet. These overflights, called perijoves, occur once every 53.5 days. The most recent (14th edition of Juno) took place on July 16th and the previous one was held on May 24th.
High-speed travel has allowed NASA to document the gas giant like never before. An optical camera called JunoCam captures beautiful images of Jupiter every time, and the space agency downloads the raw data on its websites. People around the world can then download this data and turn it into beautiful color images.
Here are 13 mesmerizing images of the latest perijove, with some highlights from the old flybys.
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