On July 4, NASA's Juno spacecraft will plunge into uncharted territory, entering orbit around Jupiter. [How NASA’s Juno mission could help tell us where we came from]"We're barreling down on Jupiter really quick," principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute said at a news briefing held at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California on Monday. The differences between Jupiter and the sun – and between Jupiter and the planets that followed it – could help scientists reverse-engineer the conditions of our early solar system. Jupiter was formed from the sun's leftovers, creating a sun-like planet that almost has its own mini solar system surrounding it. He's not too worried: The Juno computer is designed to automatically restart the orbital insertion burn if anything goes wrong.

Source: Washington Post July 04, 2016 18:15 UTC