This graphic illustrates the areas of Jupiter’s moon Io sampled by the Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during two close flybys. The superimposed black lines show the instrument’s footprints during Perijove 57 on December 30, 2023, when the spacecraft primarily mapped the Northern Hemisphere. The blue lines represent Perijove 58 on February 3, 2024, which was largely focused on the mid-latitudes and equatorial regions of the moon.

Both passes mapped the side of Io that constantly faces Jupiter. The broad, overlapping patterns are the result of the spacecraft spinning at two revolutions per minute as it passes close to the Moon at a distance of about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers).

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The MWR was built by JPL. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.

More information about Juno is at: http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu