“No other planet can reveal as much information as Jupiter about our own origins. If they make it, a five-billion-year-old treasure chest will be opened.”

– Dr. Dan Riskin, Anchor, JUPITER: CLOSE ENCOUNTER

and co-host of DAILY PLANET on Discovery

“We want to know where we came from. Earth. Life! And Jupiter holds those secrets.”

– Dr. Scott Bolton, Principal Investigator Juno Mission, NASA

Host Dan Riskin gets unparalleled access to NASA mission for JUPITER: CLOSE ENCOUNTER, July 5 on Discovery (Photo Courtesy of NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

TORONTO (June 21, 2016) – Can Jupiter unlock the secrets of Earth’s formation? How did a team engineer a spacecraft to endure a toxic mix of radiation and gaseous turbulence? After a five-year journey, the moment of truth is finally here. On Tuesday, July 5 at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, the original Discovery Canada production JUPITER: CLOSE ENCOUNTER delivers a comprehensive, hour-long look at the unprecedented, amazing, and utterly extreme journey of NASA’s heavily armoured Juno Spacecraft on an odyssey to the largest planet in the solar system.

Anchored by DAILY PLANET Co-Host Dr. Dan Riskin from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, JUPITER: CLOSE ENCOUNTER follows NASA’s Juno Spacecraft mission as it attempts to enter a “polar orbit” around the king of the the solar system for the first time ever on July 4. The landmark mission will study the planet’s spectacular auroras, seek the inner-most core, and wade into Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. The gripping one-hour special introduces viewers to the dedicated and incredible team behind the high stakes-mission – scientists determined to provide new answers to the mystery of the solar system, Earth, and life itself.

**Media Note** Photography for JUPITER: CLOSE ENCOUNTER available online at BellMediaPR.

JUPITER: CLOSE ENCOUNTER is produced by Discovery’s Exlporation Production Inc. (EPI),  the same team that brought viewers 2015’s PLUTO: FIRST ENCOUNTER, which reached 1.4 million total viewers when it premiered July 15, 2015.

Following its world premiere in Canada, JUPITER: CLOSE ENCOUNTER will air around the world on Discovery International networks, including Eastern, Central, and Western Europe, the U.K., Scandinavia, the Middle-East and Africa, China, India, South and Central Asia, Australia, South America, and the U.S.

Bringing viewers to the heart of the action, JUPITER: CLOSE ENCOUNTER offers

unprecedented access to the NASA mission lead by Principal Investigator Dr. Scott Bolton as the team overcomes incredible challenges as the Juno spacecraft reaches its destination. Discovery’s JUPITER: CLOSE ENCOUNTER promises to capture the drama and tension as scientists and engineers strain to detect the faint signals that will reveal the success – or failure – of their mission.

Juno Mission Facts and Figures:

• The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011 from Cape Canaveral, Florida
• On the evening of July 4, 2016, Juno will fire its main engine for 35 minutes, placing it into a polar orbit around the gas giant
• The solar-powered spacecraft - the size of a basketball court - will fly within 4,667 kilometers of the cloud tops of the solar system's largest planet
• NASA designed an orbit around Jupiter that minimizes exposure to Jupiter’s harsh radioactive environment. Over the course of the mission, Juno will be exposed to the equivalent of more than 100 million dental X-rays
• Juno is poised to go closer to Jupiter than any spacecraft ever before, eclipsing the previous record set in 1974 by NASA's Pioneer 11 spacecraft of 43,000 kilometers
• Weighing in at almost 400 pounds (172 kilograms), the first-of-its-kind vault carried by Juno will reduce the radiation exposure to its sensors by 800 times that outside of its outer titanium shell
• Without the vault, Juno's electronic brain would more than likely fry before the end of the very first Jupiter flyby

More information on the Juno mission is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/juno

Source: Numeris

– DISCOVERY –