Live coverage: NASA’s Juno spacecraft arrives at Jupiter

Five years after a balky valve kept it from entering orbit around Venus, Japan’s Akatsuki space probe is again approaching the sweltering planet for another shot at completing its science mission in December.

Juno has beamed back amazing images of Jupiter’s poles taken during its recent close approach. It’s the first time we’ve seen one of the gas giant’s poles in detail since Pioneer 11 flew by in 1974.

Astronomers searching for a hypothesised large planet in the outer solar system far beyond Pluto stumbled across 12 previously undetected moons orbiting Jupiter, pushing the giant planet’s total to a record 79.