Several spacecraft have visited Jupiter, beginning in 1973 with Pioneer 10.

Voyager 1 and 2 flew by in the late 1970s and took pictures that showed—among many other wonders—faint rings of tiny rock particles circling Jupiter.

In the late 1990s, a mission named in honor of Galileo orbited the giant world and studied the moons that had caused him so much soul searching. The Galileo spacecraft also sent a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, relaying the first direct data from the atmosphere of a gas giant.

The Cassini mission, on its way to the Saturn system, performed high-resolution photo surveys of Jupiter, creating the best image yet of the king of the planets.