NASA's instruments capture sharpest image of Earth's radiation belts

From Aug. 19–20, ESA's (European Space Agency's) Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) mission made history with a daring lunar-Earth flyby and double gravity assist maneuver, a spaceflight first. As the spacecraft zipped past our moon and home planet, Juice's instruments came online for a dry run of what they'll do when they reach Jupiter. During that time, two of NASA's onboard instruments added another first to the list: capturing the sharpest-ever image of Earth's radiation belts—swaths of charged particles trapped in Earth's magnetic shield, or magnetosphere.