Europe’s Jupiter-bound Juice spacecraft photographed Earth and the moon as it whipped past our home planet on Monday, stealing energy to fly the long trip.
During its flyby, the European Space Agency’s probe came within 5,370 miles of Earth, jetting over the Indian Ocean. It made its closest approach at 7:45 a.m. ET. One of its monitoring cameras captured Africa, and its navigation camera snapped Madagascar and the moon.
Earth’s gravity bent the spacecraft’s trajectory by 20 degrees and sped it up by about 7,800 mph. Juice, short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, burned little fuel to get that boost, officials said.
The space flyby marked the mission’s second Earth pop-in and ticked off yet another gravity assist to fling the spacecraft onward. The series of maneuvers began in 2024 with a combined moon-and-Earth flyby, and it also included a pass by Venus in 2025. Juice will return for a third and final Earth flyby in Jan. 2029, which should set it on its final course to Jupiter. It should arrive at the gas giant in 2031.
“We used only a small amount of the propellant reserved for this flyby,” said Angela Dietz, Juice’s spacecraft operations manager, in a statement. “This gives us more to use at Jupiter to carry out observations of the planet’s icy moons.”
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Juice’s two monitoring cameras kept shooting photos throughout the visit, taking their final shots on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the navigation camera turned toward the edge of the moon. Those frames are more than just stunning pictures; they are a test of a new method for pinpointing the spacecraft’s position, a skill Juice will need to steer around Jupiter’s moons.
In the next few weeks, the agency expects to release high-resolution views of Earth and the moon from JANUS, Juice’s main science camera, once scientists have reviewed them. (If you’re wondering what that acronym stands for, it’s a Latin phrase: “Jovis, Amorum ac Natorum Undique Scrutator,” which loosely means, “Comprehensive exploration of Jupiter and his loves and descendants.”)
As Juice swung around Earth for a gravity assist, it caught a view of Africa, with the moon visible as a tiny gray speck to the right of the planet.
Credit: ESA / Juice / JMC
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Once Juice arrives at Jupiter, the spacecraft will make 35 flybys of the giant moons Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. All three moons have oceans, and scientists want to know whether they could support life, now or perhaps in the past. Juice will also study Jupiter’s intense magnetic field and radiation before it settles into orbit around Ganymede in 2034.
Why fly in such a loopy way? A direct trip would naturally take less time, but it would require a massive rocket and a staggering amount of fuel. Juice would then need even more fuel to slow down so it wouldn’t overshoot Jupiter. By borrowing speed from Earth, the moon, and Venus, Juice saves fuel it will need later for the actual science part of the mission.
The Juice spacecraft caught Madagascar at its closest approach to Earth during a flyby on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026.
Credit: ESA / Juice / NavCam
Scientists used the flyby as a rehearsal, giving them a chance to test Juice’s instruments on a real target in space. They got the first during the 2024 moon-and-Earth flyby and the second when Juice observed interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS in 2025.
Juice didn’t waste the opportunity to see Earth in a new way, spending several days in its “magnetotail.” That’s the part of the magnetic field that a steady stream of charged particles from the sun sweeps out behind the planet. As Juice took measurements down the tail, the European-Chinese Smile mission watched the Northern Lights, a magnetic field phenomenon at the north pole that happens when solar energy crashes into Earth’s atmosphere.
