NASA's Juno mission, the solar-powered robotic explorer of Jupiter, has completed its five-year prime mission to reveal the inner workings of the solar system's biggest planet. Since 2016, the spacecraft has flown within a few thousand kilometers of Jupiter's colorful cloud tops every 53 days, using a carefully selected array of instruments to peer deeper into the planet than ever before.

The most recent findings from these measurements have now been published in a series of papers, revealing the three-dimensional structure of Jupiter's weather systems—including of its famous Great Red Spot, a centuries-old storm big enough to swallow the Earth whole.

Before Juno, decades of observations had revealed the famous striped appearance of Jupiter's atmosphere, with white bands known as zones, and red-brown bands known as belts.

From Mercury to the depths of the distant Kuiper Belt, there aren't many unexplored corners of the solar system out there. One class of object, however, remains to be visited: the transitional Centaurs out beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Now, a new study from the University of Chicago recently accepted in The Planetary Science Journal looks at the feasibility of sending a mission by mid-century to intercept, follow and watch a Centaur asteroid as it evolves into a mature inner solar system comet.

It's a major mystery for planetary astronomy: how do comets get trapped in short-period path (that is, a comet with an orbital period of less than 200 years) in the inner solar system? Jupiter plays a major role in this regard, deflecting incoming debris both into and out of the solar system.

Space has become a trash heap.

According to NASA, there are more than 27,000 pieces of spacedebris bigger than the size of a softball currently orbiting Earth, and they are traveling at speeds of up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a small chunk to damage a satellite or spacecraft like an intergalactic cannonball.

Consequently, cleaning up this space junk will be an important task if agencies are to shoot more rockets and satellites into orbit.

As humanity continues its exploration of the universe, the low-gravity environment of space presents unusual challenges for scientists and engineers.

Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory have developed a new tool to help meet that challenge—a novel design for a low-gravity simulator that promises to break new ground for future space research and habitation.