Juno Post-Arrival News Conference

NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew by Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, Monday on the first close-up visit to the icy world since 2000. The first images from the flyby show Ganymede’s cratered, icy surface in “remarkable detail,” NASA said.

Despite more than seven weeks having passed since opposition, the Solar System’s largest planet Jupiter is still big and bright in the UK evening sky of May, highest in the south around 10pm BST. Find out about the phenomena of Jupiter and its moons that you can see from the British Isles for the remainder of the month, starting with a transit of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot on 19 May.

The space environment around a planet plays a key role in determining what molecules exist in the atmosphere – and whether the planet is habitable for life. New research shows that Venus has an “electric wind” strong enough to remove the components of water from its upper atmosphere, which may have played a significant role in stripping Earth’s twin planet of its oceans.