After a nearly five-year journey, NASA’s solar-powered Juno spacecraft achieved orbit around Jupiter on Monday night. At 11:18 p.m. ET, Juno transmitted a radio signal to Earth that meant its main engine had switched on. It stayed on for 35 minutes, placing Juno into exactly the orbit that mission managers had planned for. NASA also released a movie made from pictures taken by Juno as it approached Jupiter. It shows Jupiter’s four largest moons, Calisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io orbiting the giant planet.

It’s a milestone for planetary science,” NASA Director of Planetary Science Jim Green said at a news conference before the successful maneuver, adding that the Juno mission should provide far more data than has been gleaned from fly-by trips past the gas giant.As he described the difficulty of getting a spacecraft through that radiation, Bolton also noted Jupiter’s ring of debris that could present real problems to Juno’s engine — which will need to have its nozzle open and pointed toward the planet to take speed off of the craft.

NPR’s Joe Palca report that if the orbit insertion goes smoothly, “Juno will provide a lot answers to questions about Jupiter. Although it’s well-known that the gas giant is made up primarily of hydrogen and helium gas, the planet’s core remains mysterious.”Juno has a hexagonal body — measuring 11.5 feet in diameter — that projects three solar arrays that each measure 29.5 feet by 8.7 feet. Bolton says the spacecraft’s 60 square meters (more than 650 square feet) of solar arrays produce 500 watts of power.

NASA plans for Juno to orbit Jupiter 37 times over the next 20 months as it provides new information about the gas giant’s core and composition.

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