Not to put Jupiter on the spot, but…
The large, dark shadow on the left side of the image was cast by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, as @NASASolarSystem’s Juno spacecraft captured this view of Jupiter during the mission’s 40th close pass by the giant planet on Feb. 25, 2022.
Eclipses on Jupiter are more common than what we experience on Earth. For one, Jupiter has four major moons that often pass between Jupiter and the Sun. In just one week, Ganymede transits once; Europa, twice; and Io, four times. And since Jupiter’s moons orbit in a plane close to Jupiter’s orbital plane, the moon shadows are often cast upon the planet.
Citizen scientist Thomas Thomopoulos created this enhanced-color image using raw data from the JunoCam instrument. At the time the raw image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 55 degrees south, and 15 times closer than Ganymede, which orbits about 666,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) away from Jupiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
Image processing by Thomas Thomopoulos © CC BY
#NASA #Jupiter #Shadow #Ganymede #Moon #Eclipse #SolarSystem #ManyMoons #Planet #Space
