Three Lego minifigures were placed aboard the Juno spacecraft.
The tiny crew represents three figures connected with Jupiter: the Roman god Jupiter, his wife and sister Juno, and the astronomer Galileo Galilei. The characters were selected to connect mythology with the scientific history of Jupiter’s exploration. Juno carries a magnifying glass, Jupiter holds a lightning bolt, and Galileo is depicted with a telescope.
These are not ordinary plastic toys. NASA and Lego arranged for the figures to be made from aluminum so they could tolerate the demanding conditions associated with launch and deep-space travel. Their inclusion formed part of an educational outreach effort intended to encourage interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Juno launched in 2011 and entered orbit around Jupiter in 2016. It also carried a plaque dedicated to Galileo, featuring a portrait and a passage from his 1610 notes about observing Jupiter’s moons. The common mistake is to count the plaque as another passenger, or to remember only the mythological pair; Galileo makes the total three.