Q&A with Alvaro Gimenez, ESA’s director of science

China has performed a hover and hazard avoidance test on a model the country’s first Mars rover, while engineers ready the real spacecraft for launch toward the red planet in mid-2020.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft, making its first scientific run over Jupiter’s poles Aug. 27, captured remarkable images of Jupiter’s atmosphere, showing that the equatorial bands and zones familiar to even amateur astronomers completely disappear at high latitudes.

The visible camera on NASA’s Juno spacecraft is capturing a time-lapse movie of Jupiter and its four largest moons as the orbiter dives toward the giant planet for a July 4 rendezvous, and officials have released a first taste of the views armchair scientists and space enthusiasts can anticipate over the coming weeks and months.