Live coverage: NASA’s Juno spacecraft arrives at Jupiter

Finding figures and other shapes in overhead clouds is a familiar pastime on Earth, but on Jupiter? An image from the Juno orbiter features a cloud formation that looks remarkably like a dolphin swimming through the giant planet’s turbulent atmosphere.

NASA”s Juno mission to Jupiter has been extended for multiple flybys of three Galilean moons and the giant planet’s faint rings.

The Gemini Planet Imager instrument has discovered and photographed its first planet. Dubbed 51 Eridani b, the body is a methane-enshrouded gas giant that is the most Jupiter-like exoplanet ever directly imaged, in a planetary system just 20 million years old. It may hold the key to understanding how large planets form in the swirling accretion discs around stars.