Juno sends first image of Jupiter back from orbit

NASA's spacecraft Juno left Earth nearly 5 years ago, and a few days ago, it finally reached its destination, entering Jupiter's orbit.

However, at the time, we didn't get much visual information in terms of what Juno saw as it approached the giant planet.

On Tuesday, the agency released the first set of images from Juno's in-orbit view and as expected, they are spectacular.

Scott Bolton, principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, notes, "This scene from JunoCam indicates it survived its first pass through Jupiter's extreme radiation environment without any degradation and is ready to take on Jupiter."

Photos from Juno's landing:

According to NASA, "The new view was obtained on July 10, 2016, at 10:30 a.m. PDT (1:30 p.m. EDT, 5:30 UTC), when the spacecraft was 2.7 million miles (4.3 million kilometers) from Jupiter on the outbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit. The color image shows atmospheric features on Jupiter, including the famous Great Red Spot, and three of the massive planet's four largest moons — Io, Europa and Ganymede, from left to right in the image."

The agency expects to receive first high-resolution images of the gas giant after several weeks.

Learn more about Jupiter's Red spot: