The shadow of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, has been captured on the giant Jupiter.
On the 24th (local time), Space.com, a media specialized in space, reported on a picture of Jupiter recently released by NASA.
The NASA Jupiter Juno spacecraft took this picture during a close flight to Jupiter on February 25.
This photo was edited by citizen scientist Thomas Thomopoulos from a photo taken with Junocam, and you can see the eclipse of Jupiter at a glance. The black shadow on the left of the photo is the shadow of Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon.
At the time the photo was taken, Juno was flying about 71,000 kilometers from Jupiter’s upper clouds. This was about 15 times closer than Ganymede’s orbital distance of 1.1 million km, the media reported.
“Total solar eclipses are more common on Jupiter than on Earth,” NASA explained.
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“This picture was taken very close to Jupiter, so Ganymede’s shadow is particularly large,” he added.
The Juno spacecraft left Earth in 2011 and arrived at Jupiter in 2016, orbiting it, sending stunning photos and valuable data back to Earth so scientists can learn more about the gas giant’s origins and composition. The Juno probe will continue to orbit Jupiter, revealing the secrets of Jupiter’s unusual phenomena.