Jupiter

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will take a Cassini-like approach to exploring the Jovian system when it begins its latest mission extension in August this year at which point it will make passes of Jupiter’s rings and moons, and explore key surface features.

Space exploration in 2021 will see some major milestones to look forward to. From maiden flights to fiery endings, long-awaited launches to history-making first steps, here are some of the biggest upcoming events in space exploration this year.

Giving a new meaning to the word "moonshine," NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, have concluded that Jupiter's moon Europa glows in the dark due to being constantly bombarded with high-energy radiation.

Atmospheric phenomena known as "sprites" and "elves" may be illuminating the cloud layers of Jupiter, according to a newly published study. These short-lived light displays have been spotted on Earth manifesting above intense lightening storms.

Venus may owe its extreme atmosphere to an ancient run-in with the gas giant Jupiter, which could have fundamentally altered the planet’s orbit, and led to the loss of massive amounts of its water reserves.

It’s human nature to be transfixed by clouds, and Jupiter offers some of the best cloud-watching in the solar system. Now, new Hubble images remind us why, revealing fresh storms brewing along with some intriguing changes to old ones.

NASA has discovered a strange star system where a gas giant planet is tightly orbiting a tiny white dwarf. This the first sighting of such an arrangement, raising questions about how the planet survived the star’s expansive death in the first place.

A new study from the University of Arizona indicates that Jupiter's four largest moons are as warm as they are due to tidal forces caused by the moons' gravitational fields tugging on one another, which may help explain how the Jovian moon system evolved.

Home to constant turbulent weather and the Great Red Spot – a storm bigger than Earth – Jupiter is the storm capital of the solar system. Now NASA’s Juno mission has discovered two new quirks of these storms – shallow lightning and “mushball” hail.

NASA has released the first images taken by its Juno deep-space probe of the north pole of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, which reveal that the Ganymedean polar region contains a glass-like form of ice formed by bombardment of solar particles.

Astronomers have discovered the intact, exposed core of a gas giant locked in a close orbit around a Sun-like star. The discovery will give astronomers a rare opportunity to probe the heart of an ancient alien world.

Using what is known as the “lucky imaging” technique, scientists have created one of the sharpest infrared images of Jupiter ever taken from Earth, helping to reveal its weather systems, lightning and iconic Great Red Spot in exciting new detail.