After a journey of six years, NASA's Juno spacecraft will fly directly over Jupiter's Great Red Spot, which will be humanity's first up-close and personal view of the gigantic feature, a storm monitored since 1830 and possibly existing for more than 350 years.
"July 10, NASA's Juno spacecraft will fly directly over Jupiter's Great Red Spot, giving humanity its 1st up-close view," Juno team tweeted this week.
Just days after celebrating its first anniversary in Jupiter orbit on July 4, the spacecraft will fly directly over Jupiter's iconic 16,000-kilometer-wide storm.
On July 4, Juno has logged exactly one year in Jupiter orbit. At the time, the spacecraft has chalked up about 114.5 million kilometers in orbit around the giant planet, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.
"Where were you on the night of July 4 2016? I was arriving at Jupiter!" the team tweeted on Tuesday.
According to NASA, data collection of the Great Red Spot is part of Juno's sixth science flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops. Perijove, the point at which an orbit comes closest to Jupiter's center, will be on Monday, July 10, at 6:55 p.m. PDT (July 11, 0155 GMT). At the time of perijove, Juno will be about 3,500 kilometers above the planet's cloud tops.
Eleven minutes and 33 seconds later, the spacecraft will have covered another 39,771 kilometers and will be directly above the coiling crimson cloud tops of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Juno will pass about 9,000 kilometers above the Giant Red Spot clouds. All eight of the spacecraft's instruments as well as its imager, JunoCam, will be on during the flyby.
"Jupiter's mysterious Great Red Spot is probably the best-known feature of Jupiter," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "This monumental storm has raged on the solar system's biggest planet for centuries. Now, Juno and her cloud-penetrating science instruments will dive in to see how deep the roots of this storm go, and help us understand how this giant storm works and what makes it so special."
Juno's name comes from Roman mythology. The mythical god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, and his wife, the goddess Juno, was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature.
The spacecraft was launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Without doubt, the 1.1-billion-dollar mission will provide answers to many questions about Jupiter, and help reveal some secrets about other planets in our solar system, including Earth.
Early science results from the Juno mission portray the largest planet in our solar system as a turbulent world, with an intriguingly complex interior structure, energetic polar aurora, and huge polar cyclones, according to NASA.
