July 14, 1995 Comet Impacts on Jupiter Picture Credit: NASA, Hubble Space Telescope Explanation: In July of 1994, pieces of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, also known as the "string of pearls" comet, collided with the planet Jupiter. As the comet fragments smashed in to Jupiter, the resulting explosions scattered large quantities of dusty cometary debris into the Jovian atmosphere. The clouds of debris created the multiple dark smudges visible in this picture. Jupiter's rotation causes the successive impact sites to be strung out along the cloud bands while the strong winds cause the appearance of the smudges to change with time. Jupiter's famous red spot is also visible to the left of center. For more information about the picture see comments by the Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team. We keep an archive of Astronomy Pictures of the Day. Astronomy Picture of the Day is brought to you by Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell . Original material on this page is copyrighted to Robert J. Nemiroff and Jerry T. Bonnell.

Approaching over the north pole after nearly a five-year journey, Juno enjoys a perspective on Jupiter not often seen, even by spacecraft from Earth that usually swing by closer to Jupiter's equator. Looking down toward the ruling gas giant from a distance of 10.9 million kilometers, the spacecraft's JunoCam captured this image with Jupiter's nightside and orbiting entourage of four large Galilean moons on June 21. JunoCam is intended to provide close-up views of the gas giant's cloudy zoned and belted atmosphere. On July 4 (July 5 UT) Juno is set to burn its main engine to slow down and be captured into its own orbit around the giant planet. If all goes well, it will be the first spacecraft to orbit the poles of Jupiter, skimming to within 5,000 kilometers of the Jovian cloud tops during the 20 month mission.