NASA beams back spectacular images of Jupiter and our solar system's biggest moon, Ganymede

NASA's Juno probe has flown closer to Jupiter and its largest moon, Ganymede, than any other spacecraft in more than two decades — and the images it beamed back of the gas giant and its icy orb are breathtaking. 

Juno approached Ganymede on June 7, before making its 34th flyby of Jupiter the following day, traveling from pole to pole in under three hours.  On Thursday, NASA released an animated series of images captured by the spacecraft's JunoCam imager, providing a "starship captain" point of view of each flyby. They mark the first close-up views of the largest moon in the solar system since the Galileo orbiter last flew past in 2000.