Riding on a plume of fire from its Atlas V rocket, the NASA mission Juno launched at 16:25 UT (12:25 Eastern US time) on its way to Jupiter.

Juno will take 5 years to get to Jupiter, taking the 3 billion kilometer scenic route. In October 2013 it will actually pass the Earth once again, using the gravity of Earth and its motion around the Sun to steal a tiny bit of our energy and propel it to the outer solar system. From here, it will take a wide elliptical path to the giant planet, which orbits the Sun 5 times farther out than the Earth does. That’s why it takes so long.

Once there, it will orbit Jupiter for about an Earth year (how cool and science fictiony is it be able to say that?), taking its measure of Jupiter’s atmosphere, composition, surrounding environment, and magnetic field. It’s equipped with microwave, ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light detectors (which means very high-resolution pictures!) as well as other instruments to try to understand this enormous planet.

Interestingly, Juno is using solar panels for power; sunlight is only 4% as strong at Jupiter ...