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Juno will come within roughly 930 miles from the surface of the most volcanic world in our solar system.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will on Saturday, Dec. 30, make the closest flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io that any spacecraft has made in over 20 years.

Gravity data collected by NASA’s Juno mission indicates Jupiter’s atmospheric winds penetrate the planet in a cylindrical manner, parallel to its spin axis. A paper on the findings was recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Data collected by NASA’s Juno mission indicates a briny past may be bubbling to the surface on Jupiter’s largest moon.

On Sept. 7, 2023, during its 54th close flyby of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno mission captured this view of an area in the giant planet’s far northern regions called Jet N7.

Just hours before NASA’s Juno mission completed its 53rd close flyby of Jupiter on July 31, 2023, the spacecraft sped past the planet’s volcanic moon Io and captured this dramatic view of both bodies in the same frame.

When NASA’s Juno mission flies by Jupiter’s fiery moon Io on Sunday, July 30, the spacecraft will be making its closest approach yet, coming within 13,700 miles (22,000 kilometers) of it.

On March 1, 2023, NASA’s Juno mission completed its 49th close flyby of Jupiter. As the spacecraft flew low over the giant planet’s cloud tops, its JunoCam instrument captured this look at bands of high-altitude haze forming above cyclones in an area known at Jet N7.

In this view of a vortex near Jupiter’s north pole, NASA’s Juno mission observed the glow from a bolt of lightning.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will fly past Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io on Tuesday, May 16, and then the gas giant itself soon after. The flyby of the Jovian moon will be the closest to date, at an altitude of about 22,060 miles (35,500 kilometers). Now in the third year of its extended mission to investigate the interior of Jupiter, the solar-powered spacecraft will also explore the ring system where some of the gas giant’s inner moons reside.