An image of Ganymede obtained by Juno’s 7 June flyby
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
Swooping low over Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede, NASA’s Juno probe has snapped the first close-up photographs of the frozen giant in more than two decades – and they’re breathtaking. Juno zoomed as close as 645 miles from the icy surface of the Solar System’s largest moon on 7 June 2021, giving the spacecraft a 25-minute window to snap photos – long enough for five exposures – before it zipped away on its 33rd orbit of Jupiter.