Video: Rosetta scientist Matt Taylor on the end of mission

NASA’s Juno spacecraft, now on its 11th orbit around Jupiter, continues to return jaw-dropping views of the solar systems’s biggest planet from previously-unseen up-close perspectives of its colorful clouds and raging storms.

The Vikram lander, part of India’s Chandrayaan 2 mission launched in July, will attempt to land near the lunar south pole Friday and deploy a rover to conduct the first on-the-ground scientific surveys away from the moon’s equatorial regions.

Videos and photos help tell the story of Thursday’s launch of Europe’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft, carrying high-tech thrusters and ultra-sensitive motion sensors to be used in a future gravitational wave detection mission, from French Guiana aboard a nearly 100-foot-tall (30-meter) Vega rocket.