Nearly five years after its launch, NASA's Juno spacecraft achieved orbit around Jupiter late Monday.
At NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California, thrilled scientists received a signal from the spacecraft at 11:53 p.m. Eastern time announcing it was in orbit after a 35-minute engine burn. The most difficult part of the entrance took place at around 10:30 p.m., when Juno passed through a belt of radiation where electrons went back and forth at nearly the speed of light and could have easily fried the spacecraft's electronics, but they were protected by a titanium vault.
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