page_title: Exploration of Jupiter
section_title: New Horizons (2007)
hierarchical_section_title: Exploration of Jupiter / Flyby missions / New Horizons (2007)
caption_attribution_description: English: Sequence of five images taken by NASA's New Horizons probe on March 1st 2007, over the course of eight minutes from 23:50 UT. The images form an animation of an eruption by the Tvashtar Paterae volcanic region on the innermost of Jupiter's Galilean moons, Io. The plume is 330 km high, though only its uppermost half is visible in this image, as its source lies over the moon's limb on its far side.
context_page_description: The exploration of Jupiter has been conducted via close observations by automated spacecraft. It began with the arrival of Pioneer 10 into the Jovian system in 1973, and, as of 2016, has continued with eight further spacecraft missions. All of these missions were undertaken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and all but two have been flybys that take detailed observations without the probe landing or entering orbit. These probes make Jupiter the most visited of the Solar System's outer planets as all missions to the outer Solar System have used Jupiter flybys to reduce fuel requirements and travel time. On 5 July 2016, spacecraft Juno arrived and entered the planet's orbit—the second craft ever to do so. Sending a craft to Jupiter entails many technical difficulties, especially due to the probes' large fuel requirements and the effects of the planet's harsh radiation environment.
  The first spacecraft to visit Jupiter was Pioneer 10 in 1973, followed a year later by Pioneer 11. Aside from taking the first close-up pictures of the planet, the probes discovered its magnetosphere and its largely fluid interior.
context_section_description: The New Horizons probe, en route to Pluto, flew by Jupiter for a gravity assist and was the first probe launched directly towards Jupiter since the Ulysses in 1990. Its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took its first photographs of Jupiter on September 4, 2006. The spacecraft began further study of the Jovian system in December 2006, and made its closest approach on February 28, 2007.
  Although close to Jupiter, New Horizons' instruments made refined measurements of the orbits of Jupiter's inner moons, particularly Amalthea. The probe's cameras measured volcanoes on Io, studied all four Galilean moons in detail, and made long-distance studies of the outer moons Himalia and Elara. The craft also studied Jupiter's Little Red Spot and the planet's magnetosphere and tenuous ring system.
  On March 19, 2007 the Command and Data Handling computer experienced an uncorrectable memory error and rebooted itself, causing the spacecraft to go into safe mode. The craft fully recovered within two days, with some data loss on Jupiter's magnetotail. No other data loss events were associated with the encounter. Due to the immense size of the Jupiter system and the relative closeness of the Jovian system to Earth in comparison to the closeness of Pluto to Earth, New Horizons sent back more data to Earth from the Jupiter encounter than the Pluto encounter.
caption: Video of volcanic plumes on Io, as recorded by New Horizons in 2008