New Horizons soars past Jupiter as the volcanic moon Io passes between the spacecraft and planet.
Although the main mission of New Horizons is to explore the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt of icy, rocky objects, the spacecraft will first fly by the solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter, early 2007 — just a little over a year after launch. In this artist’s rendering, New Horizons soars past Jupiter as the volcanic moon Io passes between the spacecraft and planet.Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI)