An illustration of NASA’s Juno spacecraft over Jupiter’s South Pole. Image credit: NASA

NASA’s Juno mission has completed a close flyby of Jupiter and its notorious Great Red Spot as part of the spacecraft’s sixth science orbit of the giant planet.

Juno reached perijove, or the point at which an orbit comes closest to Jupiter’s center, on July 10 where it was about 2,200 miles above the planet. It then moved directly over the cloud tops of the Great Red Spot passing about 5,600 miles above the clouds of this iconic feature, NASA says.

The Great Red Spot is a 10,000-mile wide storm that has been monitored since 1830 and has possibly existed for more than 350 years. In modern times, the spot appears to be shrinking.

"For generations people from all over the world and all walks of life have marveled over the Great Red Spot," says Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Now we are finally going to see what this storm looks like up close and personal."

Juno was launched in 2011 and has previously entered into Jupiter’s orbit five other times studying its auroras to learn more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. Recently, Juno revealed that Jupiter has a massive, chaotic weather system full of planet-size cyclones and a mammoth magnetic field.

NASA says it will be releasing raw images from the Juno spacecraft in the coming days.

Learn more about the Juno mission by visiting: www.nasa.gov/juno