Ganymede casts massive shadow on Jupiter in spectacular new image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft

Figure 1. Citizen scientist Thomas Tomopoulos created this enhanced color image using raw data from the JunoCam tool. At the time of the raw image, the Juno spacecraft was about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above the tops of Jupiter’s clouds, about 55 degrees south latitude and 15 times closer to Ganymede, which orbits about 666,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) (1.1 million kilometers). ) away from Jupiter. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS, Image Processing by Thomas Tomopoulos © CC BY

NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this magnificent view of Jupiter during the 40th close passage of the mission past the giant planet on February 25, 2022. The large dark shadow on the left side of the image was cast by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.

Citizen scientist Thomas Tomopoulos created this enhanced color image using raw data from the JunoCam tool (Figure 1). At the time the raw image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud peaks, about 55 degrees south latitude and 15 times closer than Ganymede, which orbits about 666 000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) (1.1 million kilometers). ) away from Jupiter.

An observer at the tops of Jupiter’s clouds in the oval shadow would experience a total eclipse of the Sun. Complete eclipses are more common on Jupiter than on Earth for several reasons. Jupiter has four large moons (Galilean moons) that often pass between Jupiter and the Sun: in seven days Ganymede passes once; Europe, twice; and Io, four times. And because Jupiter’s moons orbit in a plane close to Jupiter’s orbital plane, moon shadows are often cast on the planet.

Figure 2. Illustration of the approximate geometry of Ganymede’s shadow projected on a globe of Jupiter. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS, Image Processing by Brian Swift © CC BY

JunoCam captured this image from very close to Jupiter, making Ganymede’s shadow look particularly large. Figure 2, created by civilian scientist Brian Swift using data from JunoCam, illustrates the approximate geometry of the visible area projected onto a Jupiter globe.

JunoCam’s raw images are available to the public for viewing and processing into image products at https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing.

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and the fifth planet in the Sun. It is a gas giant with a mass that is more than two and a half times larger than all the other planets in the solar system combined, but is only about one thousandth of the mass of the Sun. Jupiter, behind the Moon and Venus, is the third brightest natural object in the Earth’s night sky and has been spotted since prehistoric times. He was named after Jupiter, the Roman god and king of the gods.

Ganymede, a satellite of the planet Jupiter, is the largest and most massive satellite of the solar system. It is the ninth largest object in the solar system (including the Sun) and the largest without a significant atmosphere. It has a diameter of 5,268 kilometers (3,273 miles), which makes it 26 percent larger in volume than Mercury, but only 45 percent larger.