After an epic five-year journey through the cold void of deep space, NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully fired its main engine and slipped into a highly elliptical orbit around Jupiter on the 4th of July. The engineering required to pull this off is staggering; the spacecraft had to perform a flawless automated burn while being bombarded by a fierce storm of high-energy electrons trapped within Jupiter's magnetosphere.

Juno is going to dive closer to the cloud tops than any mission before it, peer deep beneath the thick cover of hydrogen and helium, and map the internal structure of this giant world. We are on the cusp of uncovering how our solar system's oldest planet actually formed. It's a beautiful victory for human curiosity and scientific exploration.