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NASA's Juno space probe has successfully arrived in orbit around Jupiter after a five-year, 1.4 billion-mile voyage.

The historic moment for astronomy has been marked with a special Google Doodle portraying the moment cheers and applause erupted at mission control.

Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology celebrated the achievement when a signal arrived confirming the burn was complete at around 4.54am.

The probe underwent a high-risk manoeuvre to bring it closer to the giant planet than any spacecraft has come before and into one of the solar system's most hostile environments.

The automated procedure began in the early hours of Tuesday before a "giant" burn of its rocket initiated at around 4.18am to slow its approach speed from 150,000 mph (250,000 kph).

(Image: Google) (Image: Getty)

The rocket is set to burn for around 35 minutes, with confirmation of whether it has been a success expected at some point in the following hour.

Launched in 2011, it is a do-or-die moment for Juno as it hurtles toward the behemoth, with a risk the probe may shoot past the planet and into oblivion if the scientists' calculations are not absolutely correct.

(Image: Getty) (Image: NASA)

They hope to bring the spacecraft within 2,900 miles of Jupiter's swirling cloud tops, a region of space blasted by the highest levels of radiation in the solar system.

The titanium armoured probe's mission is to improve our understanding of Jupiter's formation and evolution by using an array of complex instruments to peer through the thick atmosphere and its famous Great Red Spot.

(Image: NASA) (Image: NASA)

Scientists hope that analysis of Jupiter's interior structure will also help them understand the history and formation of the wider solar system.

A panoramic camera will also return images of the planet in detail never seen before.

However it will be some time before Juno begins beaming data and images back to Earth, as the spacecraft's camera and other instruments were switched off for arrival.

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The solar powered probe's solar arrays were turned away from the sun for the final approach and will have to be repositioned once in orbit.

Dubbed the "biggest, baddest planet in the solar system" by the Juno team, Jupiter is surrounded by a field of high radiation streaked with particles energised by its immensely strong magnetic field.

It also has a ring of dust and rock similar to its neighbour, Saturn, posing a further threat to the fragile probe.

What will Juno tell us?

Juno aims to reveal more of the solar system's largest and oldest planet's secrets.

Named after the Roman god, Jupiter is a gas giant composed mainly of hydrogen and helium with a mass two and half times that of the solar system's other planets combined.

Juno is the eighth probe to visit Jupiter, and is equipped to sense what is going on below the planets thick clouds.

(Image: NASA)

In fact, that's why it's called Juno. In Roman mythology, mischievous god Jupiter used a veil of clouds to hide his naughtiness. But his wife, Juno, was able to peer through his weird mist and see Jupiter's true nature.

Rather than revealing an irritating husband, NASA's Juno hopes to reveal Jupiter's origin story. A key goal is to measure the abundance of water in the planet's atmosphere.

This will help scientists understand Jupiter's formation, which will in turn tell us about more about the origins of the whole solar system.

Another key goal is to measure the mass of the planet's core, which Juno will achieve by mapping gravitational and magnetic fields. This will hopefully tell us whether the planet has a solid middle.

The probe will also measure atmospheric composition, temperature, structure and dynamics, as well as characterising the planet's stunning auroras.

The mission will end with Juno being burnt up in the Jovian atmosphere.

This is intentional, and will ensure that the probe does not crash into Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.

Europa is considered to have an environment that could harbour microbial life, and Juno could contaminate that pristine environment, which would ruin NASA's future plans to investigate life on the icy moon.