The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Juno spacecraft will make its seventh science flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops Friday.
"Here I go again! I'll make my next science flyby over #Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops on Sept. 1 at 2:49 p.m. PST (2249 GMT)," Juno team tweeted on Wednesday.
At the time of perijove, defined as the point in Juno's orbit when it is closest to the planet's center, the spacecraft will be about 3,500 km above the planet's cloud tops.
During its mission of exploration, Juno, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet's origin, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
During its July 10 flyby, the JunoCam imager aboard NASA's Juno mission snapped pictures of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Images of the most iconic feature of the solar system's largest planet reveal a tangle of dark, veinous clouds weaving their way through a massive crimson oval, NASA said.
Without doubt, the 1.1-billion-dollar mission, part of the New Frontiers Program, is seeking answers to many questions about Jupiter, and is helping reveal some secrets about other planets in our solar system, including Earth.
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 and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
