How far can a solar-powered craft travel? NASA knows: its Juno mission to Jupiter broke the record to become humanity's most distant solar-powered emissary. The milestone occurred at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST, 19:00 UTC) on Wednesday, Jan. 13, when Juno was about 493 million miles (793 million km) from the sun. The previous record-holder was the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, whose orbit peaked at 492 million miles (792 million km) in October 2012 during its approach to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Juno's maximum distance from the sun during its 16-month mission will be about 517 million miles. Inage source: NASA/CaltechLaunched in 2011, Juno is the first solar-powered spacecraft designed to operate at such a great distance from the sun, and the surface area of solar panels required to generate adequate power is quite large. The 4-ton Juno spacecraft carries three 30-ft-long (9-m) solar arrays with 18,698 individual solar cells. At Earth distance from the sun, the cells have the potential to generate approximately 14 kW of electricity.

Before this mission, eight spacecraft have navigated deep space as far as Jupiter. All have used nuclear power sources to get their job done. Solar power is possible on Juno due to improved solar cell performance, energy-efficient instruments and spacecraft, a mission design that can avoid Jupiter's shadow, and a polar orbit that minimizes the total radiation.

Juno's maximum distance from the sun during its 16-month mission will be about 517 million miles (832 million km), an almost 5 percent increase in the record for solar-powered space vehicles.