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The Juno space probe carried three Lego figurines made of aluminum.
Galileo, who discovered a Galilean moons,
carrying the planet Jupiter and a telescope in his hands; the Roman god of light and sky, Jupiter holding a lightning bolt; and
Juno ,Jupiter's wife holding a magnifying glass.
It also carried a plaque with a copy of Galileo's notes when he first discovered the Galilean moons - Io Europa Ganymede
and Callisto. The probe traveled a total distance of 2.8 billion kilometres. Juno is the most distant
solar-powered space probe. Most space probes that go to the outer solar system
use nuclear power to keep going like the Cassini-Huygens and the New Horizons space probes.
Juno's instruments were more energy efficient and it's solar panels provided 500 watts of power.
Each solar panel was 30 feet long and 9 feet wide. The entire space probe was almost the size of a basketball
court. It had as much hard-drive space as your laptop. The Juno space probe had 256 megabytes of flash memory
for storing data permanently even without power, and
128 megabytes of dynamic random access memory or
DRAM requiring less physical space at a low cost with a higher memory capacity.
Juno is currently orbiting the planet that has the strongest magnetic field in the solar system -
20,000 times stronger than Earth as close as 4000 kilometres.
It has a vault the size of an SUV's trunk made of titanium to protect its instruments.
Its mission has been extended until at least July 2021 when the probe will be a de-orbited and burn up in Jupiter's atmosphere
to avoid contaminating Europa with microbes from Earth.
Thanks for watching and keep looking up! :)