Nasa’s Juno probe loses over 200 images of Jupiter after camera glitch

NASA's Juno spacecraft suffered a glitch that caused it to lose over 200 images taken during a flyby of Jupiter.

Image of Jupiter's southern hemisphere taken by the Juno spacecraft on January 22, 2023. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS)

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NASA announced that the JunoCam imager aboard its Juno spacecraft faced a glitch which left more than 214 images from the spacecraft’s recent flyby of Jupiter unusable. The camera had experienced a similar issue in December when the team detected an “anomalous temperature rise” after the camera was powered on for the flyby.

But the latest glitch persisted for a much longer time—23 hours compared to the 36 minutes during the December close flyby. But on January 22, just like with the previous occurrence, once the anomaly that caused the temperature rise was solved, the camera continued to operate as normal and the remaining 44 images it took were usable.

JunoCam is a visible-light camera that has been designed to capture pictures of cloud tops on Jupiter. Initially built to operate in Jupiter’s high-energy particle environment for at least seven orbits, the camera has survived for much longer.

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“The mission team is evaluating JunoCam engineering data acquired during the two recent flybys – the 47th and 48th of the mission – and is investigating the root cause of the anomaly and mitigation strategies. JunoCam will remain powered on for the time being, and the camera continues to operate in its nominal state,” wrote NASA officials in a press statement.

Launched in August 2011, the Juno spacecraft initially embarked on a 5-year journey to the largest planet in our solar system. Its mission was to look beneath the dense clouds on the planet to help scientists answer questions about the origin and evolution of the enigmatic gas giant. It arrived at Jupiter in July 2016 after a 5-year, 2.7-billion-kilometre journey.

Towards the end of its primary mission, the spacecraft’s objectives evolved, and it transitioned into a full Jupiter system explorer with flybys of Jovian moons. After sending back a treasure trove of details about the Jovian moons Ganymede and Europa, the spacecraft is set to take pictures of Io, another Jovian moon.

According to NASA, Jupiter’s Moon Io is the most volcanic place in the solar system. It will have the full attention of Juno for the next one and a half years.

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NASA