NASA created Juno, the JUpiter Near-polar Orbiter, a 1.1 billion USD spacecraft missioned to orbit Jupiter and collect data. Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 5th, 2011. The spacecraft will travel a distance of roughly 2.8 billion kilometers from Earth to Jupiter. Juno will reach Jupiter on July 4th, 2016. It will orbit around Jupiter 37 times over the course of 20 months.

Jupiter is a gas planet so Juno can’t land on it. Jupiter’s atmosphere is made up of about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium with other gasses mixed in. Jupiter is thought of as a giant planet and failed star. It lacks the same mass as a star, making it impossible for it to achieved the critical pressure to ignite the fusion reaction that powers a sun.

Scientists want to study Jupiter’s atmosphere because unlike the smaller planets closer to the sun didn’t go through multiple changes early in it’s existence. Smaller planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars were scorched by the sun, and pounded by comets and asteroids in their early existence. Since Jupiter didn’t go through those changes it’s carrying 4.5 billion years of cosmic chemistry in it’s clouds. Scientists hope to collect data from Jupiter’s clouds with Juno to learn more about our solar system.