The large white oval and jet stream in the northern latitudes of Jupiter, taken by NASA's Juno ... [+] spacecraft on perijove 28.

NASAs Juno spacecraft has sent back yet another batch of astonishing new images from Jupiterand some unique images of its moon Ganymede have also emerged.

These new images from its 28th flyby come as the solar-powered spacecraft celebrates four years in orbit around the gas giant planet, which has just come to opposition for us on Earth, along with fellow giant planet Saturn.

Jupiter as a crescent as Juno approached it at the weekend.

At Jupiter since July 5, 2016,Junohas been in an elliptical polar orbit that has it spend most of its time away from the planet.

Only every 53 days does it get close to Jupiter, but during its brief flyby it gets super-close to the planets cloud-tops to take some astonishing photos.

Each dip close to Jupiter is called aperijove, which is Greek for the extreme points in the orbit of one body around another.

Its in the few days after each perijove that Juno sends back its images via NASAs Deep Space Network.

However, NASA isnt actually responsible for most of the images we see coming from Juno at Jupiter; raw imagers from JunoCam are uploaded after each perijove and very soon freely available for citizen scientists to download and post-process into wonderful photos.

Detail on Jupiter from Juno's perijove 28 flyby on July 28, 2020.

Junos images have taught us so much about the dynamic nature of Jupiter's atmosphere in a level of detail that we haven't everseen before, especially when correlated with data from the infrared imager, magnetometer data, and with Earth-bound observations, said Kevin M. Gill, a software engineer at NASA-JPL, to me via email. Gill is one of the hardest working citizen scientists on the JunoCam. Most of the work is done when Im on lunch, abreak, or after hours, he said.

Jupiter as captured by Juno on July 28, 2020.

The public availability of Junos raw images have resulted in some incredible images including Jupiters racing stripes,its giant jet-stream,a classic Jupiter Marble portrait, anda churning Jupiter.

If you want to see more see Gills Twitter account and check-out the featured submissions page on the missions outreach website.

Jupiter's southern circumpolar cyclones, processed by citizen scientist Svetoslav Alexandrov.

Its unusual orbit enables it to take valuable scientific observations, though arguably its the wondrous images it sends back that have made it one of the most popular NASA missions yet.

The spacecrafts JunoCam shoots images as it spinsusing its basic two-megapixel, 58 field of view camera.

The first infrared images of Ganymede's northern frontier, taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft took on ... [+] Dec. 26, 2019.

Although Juno hasnt been able to study many of Jupiters 79 moons, NASA last week published images the probe managed to snap of its giant moon Ganymede. Bigger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede consists primarily of water ice and is the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetic field.

The imagestaken using Junos Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument on December 26, 2019, but only published noware the first infrared images of the moons north pole.

The north pole of Ganymede can be seen in center of this annotated image taken by the JIRAM infrared ... [+] imager aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft on Dec. 26, 2019. The thick line is 0-degrees longitude.

Junos JIRAM was designed to capture the infrared light emerging from deep inside Jupiter, probing its weather down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below Jupiters cloud tops. However, the instrument can also be used to study the moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

Juno got to within 62,000 miles/100,000 kilometers of Ganymede and collected 300 infrared images of its surface.

Heres a wonderful time-lapse video from Gill that compiles images taken by JunoCam during Junes perijove 27 flyby of Jupiter:

The NASA spacecrafts scientific mission is to study Jupiters atmosphere and magnetosphere. It spends most of its time away from Jupiter taking measurements of the outer atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Juno is part of NASAs New Frontiers missions. It launched on August 5, 2011, on an Atlas V rocket, reached Jupiter in July 2016.

A fun, false-colorized Jupiter from a previous flyby, edited using Photoshop, created by citizen ... [+] scientists Gerald Eichstdt, Sen Doran and Rachel Tortorici.

Juno will complete its mission on July 30, 2021. While on its 35th and finalperijoveit will be purposely crashed into Jupiters atmosphere, where it will disintegrate.

However, Junos scientific discoveries will pave the way for the European Space Agencys JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission, which from 2030 will spend over three years exploring Jupiters giant magnetosphere, turbulent atmosphere, and its moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Another view of Jupiter from Juno, taken earlier this week.

So whats most exciting to Junos citizen scientists? In addition to the obvious current choice, NASAs Perseverance Rover, I'm very excited about the Europa Clipper mission and the Dragonfly mission to Titan, said Gill. Allwillbe returning spectacular and unprecedented imagery of their respective targets.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

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Jupiter And Its Giant Moon Dazzle In New Photos From NASAs Juno As It Marks 4 Years In Orbit - Forbes