Io2.0010_NASA

Io2.0010_NASA

NASA's Juno website
Ovid Met.1.600 ff.

LEGO figurines representing the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno [and, cropped out, Galileo] are shown here aboard the Juno spacecraft, launched 5 Aug 2011.

AP, PASADENA – NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft launches 1.5-inch likenesses of...the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno to Jupiter when the space-craft launches (5Aug11). The inclusion of the ministatues, or figurines, is part of a joint outreach and educational program developed in a partnership between NASA and LEGO to inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Galileo, who investigated Jupiter in the Renaissance, is also a LEGO on board.

Two white LEGO minifigures, one with a beard and staff, the other with a round shield, on a metallic foil surface

In Ovid Met. 1, Jupiter veils his mischievous affair with Io under cloudy skies over Arcadia. From Olympus, Juno suspects Jupiter's true character is under those clouds and investigates. NASA's Lego-Juno holds a magnifying glass to signify her search for the truth; Lego-Jupiter holds a lightning bolt. The space-craft Juno arrive at the planet Jupiter in 2016.

The mission will investigate the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. Juno's color camera will provide close-up images of Jupiter, including the first detailed glimpse of the planet's poles. [Prepared with NASA website.]

Info re: NASA's Juno: www.nasa.gov/juno and
missionjuno.swri.edu. Or
www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.