Space missions Memes

The cosmic drama unfolds! NASA's Juno spacecraft mission is a brilliant astronomical pun hiding in plain sight. In Roman mythology, Jupiter (Zeus in Greek) was notoriously unfaithful, and his many lovers became the names of Jupiter's moons. Meanwhile, Juno (Hera) was his long-suffering wife. So NASA essentially sent Jupiter's wife to spy on him and his 79+ moons/affairs! The spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016, collecting data on the gas giant's composition, gravity field, and magnetic field. Clearly, someone at NASA's mission-naming department deserves a raise for this mythological relationship counseling session happening 365 million miles from Earth.