Astronomy Picture of the Day - Juno Flyby of Ganymede and Jupiter

NASA ^ | 14 Dec, 2025 | Video Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SWRI, MSSS; Animation: Koji Kuramura, Gerald Eichstädt, Mike Stetso

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: What would it be like to fly over the largest moon in the Solar System? In 2021, the robotic Juno spacecraft flew past Jupiter's huge moon Ganymede and took images that have been digitally constructed into a detailed flyby. As the featured video begins, Juno swoops over the two-toned surface of the 2,000-km wide moon, revealing an icy alien landscape filled with grooves and craters. The grooves are likely caused by shifting surface plates, while the craters are caused by violent impacts. Continuing on in its orbit, Juno then performed its 34th close pass over Jupiter's clouds. The digitally-constructed video shows numerous swirling clouds in the north, colorful planet-circling zones and bands across the middle -- featuring several white-oval clouds from the String of Pearls, and finally more swirling clouds in the south.

[MtnClimber]

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Today's image is a video at the source link.

[MtnClimber]

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Today's image is a video at the source link.

[SkyDancer]

Awesome ...would like to see the surface ...

[telescope115]

Amazing video. Jupiter looks like a different planet seen from that direction. The whole video reminds me of Kubrick’s 2001 and 2010.

[blueunicorn6]

I saw a Mongol riding on a horse.

[blueunicorn6]

Eating a cheeseburger.

[AFB-XYZ]

My winning-est marble as a kid looked a lot like that.

[econjack]

Very cool!!

[marktwain]

Dramatic. Especially those electrical storms on Jupiter!