Nasa's Jupiter flyby is a confidence booster

An enhanced-colour image of Jupiter’s south pole, from Nasa’s Juno mission. Photograph: Nasa

Nasa’s Juno spacecraft has skimmed past Jupiter’s north and south pole, returning data on the giant planet and its atmosphere.

The flyby took place on 2 February at 12:57 GMT. Travelling at 129,000mph relative to the planet, the solar powered spacecraft made its close approach over Jupiter’s north pole before skirting the planet and exiting over the south pole. At closest approach, Juno was 2,670 miles above the cloud tops.

All nine science instruments, including the colour camera, were operating during the flyby and the data has been downloading this week.

Juno’s mission is to make detailed measurements of the amount of water in Jupiter’s atmosphere. This will allow the planet’s origins to be investigated as different theories lead to different amounts of water.

Last week’s flyby was the fourth since the probe arrived, and proved to be a confidence booster. During the third flyby in October 2016, the onboard computer rebooted unexpectedly, resulting in the loss of all science data.

The spacecraft also missed out on an engine burn that would have put it into a shorter orbit. This was because of an unrelated problem involving sticky valves in the propulsion system. Currently, Juno is stuck in a 54-day orbit instead of its intended 14-day orbit.

The spacecraft’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, has said that the science can still be done but it will take longer to collect the data.

Managers at Nasa are deciding whether to attempt the engine burn to alter the orbit later this year.