JUICE Spacecraft Captures Sharpest Image of Earth's Radiation Belt

The ESA mission's instruments revealed unprecedented details of Earth's magnetosphere during a historic lunar-Earth flyby.

ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) conducted a daring Moon-Earth flyby in August 2024, utilizing a double gravity assist maneuver.
NASA's JENI instrument on JUICE captured the clearest images ever of Earth's radiation belts, showing a vast ring of hot plasma.
The images reveal the structure of the Van Allen radiation belts, which are crucial for protecting Earth from cosmic and solar radiation.
Data collected during the flyby will help scientists understand plasma heating and interactions in planetary magnetospheres.
JUICE will use additional gravity assists from Venus and Earth before reaching Jupiter in July 2031 to study its atmosphere and moons.