NASA ’s Juno military mission continues to snap picture of Jupiter , which citizen scientists have been litigate into out-and-out masterpieces . In the latest perijove , when the ballistic capsule is at its closest full point to the major planet , Juno captured the shadow of the volcanic Moon Io on the atmosphere of Jupiter .
On September 12 , Io was block up the Solar platter , cast its shadow on the colorful North Equatorial belt . Both Seán Doran andKevin M. Gillshared beautiful views of the event , with a nappy silhouette of Io above the turbulent Jovian atmosphere .
When we count at solar occultation from infinite , their contoursare fuzzy(at least on Earth ) . The solar eclipse on Jupiter look importantly different due to the systematic difference between the two organisation . Our Moon looks roughly the same sizing as the Sun as seen from Earth , which allows for a less distinct shadow .
“ Why is the Moon ’s shadow on Earth fuzzy while Io ’s shadow on Jupiter is so discriminating ? Io is so big & close that it more than blocks the Sun ( it appears 4x as vainglorious as the Sun from Jupiter ’s position ) and it ’s so secretive that the penumbra ( fuzzy outer sharpness of trace ) is super slight , ” astronomer Dr Katie Mack notice on aTwitter threadabout the pictures .
The images were shoot down using JunoCam’sinstrumentonboard the NASA spacecraft . The television camera permit for persuasion in visible light , with an incredible settlement of about 15 klick ( 9 knot ) per picture element . The raw information is sent to Earth where mass like Doran and Gill process it . Anyone can get involve through the JunoCam website . you may even suggestpoints of interestfor future observations .
The spacecraftreached Jupiter in 2016 . It perform a airless flyby every 53 days with the next one happening on November 3 , which will be the 23rd out of 35 planned flybys . The last one will take spot on July 30 , 2021 , and will end in acontrolled swan diveinto the planet . This is to avoid any potential contamination of lifespan - bearing public such as Jupiter ’s moon Europa .
