By Jove! Juno enters Jupiter's orbit, and you get to take the pictures - CNET

This Fourth of July, while the rest of America is busy eating hotdogs and lighting fireworks (hopefully at the same time), the dedicated scientists and engineers of NASA are once again putting in the long hours, this time to bring us never before seen pictures of Jupiter.

But once NASA gets us there, it's up to us to take pictures of the action.

After almost five years hurtling solo through space, the solar-powered Juno spacecraft is today set to enter Jupiter's orbit, before spending 20 months circling the gas giant. In this time, Juno will make 37 trips around Jupiter, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit the planet's poles, getting within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometres) of the cloud tops.

And, for the first time, NASA is handing the camera over to the public. As part of the mission, members of the public will be able to choose points of interest for the spacecraft's JunoCam to capture in colour photos, before getting a chance to process them and share them online.

It's another milestone for NASA, which has spent the past year celebrating its fair share of achievements in space science. Almost a year ago to the day, NASA's New Horizons space probe conducted its eagerly-anticipated Pluto fly-by, zooming past the dwarf planet at 30,000mph and sending back brilliant images and data.