Jupiter snapped with an iPhone

As ESA prepares to launch the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission in April 2023, you too can observe the giant planet and its largest moons. This photo of Jupiter (visible towards the top of the image in the centre, just below the white smear) was taken with an iPhone.

Jupiter rises in the east and sets in the west. At the midpoint of its journey across the sky it can be found in the south. You do not need expensive equipment to observe the gas giant; in fact, you can easily observe it with your naked eye and take photos like this one with your smartphone.

Read more in our guide on how to observe Jupiter and its moons.

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, is humanity’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. It will make detailed observations of gas giant Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. This ambitious mission will characterise these moons with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.  

Juice launches on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou in April 2023. It has an eight year cruise with flybys of Earth and Venus to slingshot it to Jupiter. It will make 35 flybys of the three large moons while orbiting Jupiter, before changing orbits to Ganymede.

Juice is a mission under ESA leadership with contributions from NASA, JAXA and the Israeli Space Agency. It is the first Large-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme.