NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured a truly awe-inspiring shot of a partial solar eclipse on Jupiter, capping off its 22nd close flyby of the enormous planet in sensational style.
Io, the closest of Jupiter’s four moons, casts a surprisingly sharp shadow across the surface of the gas giant in the amazing photos. The images come to us courtesy of NASA software engineer and citizen scientist, Kevin Gill, who shared his rendering of the craft’s image on his Twitter feed.
NASA encourages the public to process the images transmitted back to Earth by the probe, and Gill’s efforts are the latest interesting result.
Io’s shadow on Jupiter appears so sharp because it is much bigger and much closer to Jupiter than our Moon is to Earth. It appears roughly four times as big as the Sun does from Jupiter’s perspective.
The moon takes 1.77 days to orbit the giant planet, while Juno makes a close flyby every 53 days.
Gill also shared an amazing 360-degree horizon-to-horizon view over Jupiter, showcasing the probe’s powerful cameras and his immense skill at image processing.
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