Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Triple Eclipse on Jupiter

Posted by michael on from the triple-your-pleasure dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Hubble Space Telescope captured a stunning image of a rare triple eclipse. Three of Jupiter's three big moons--Io, Ganymede and Callisto--eclipsed large portions of face of the giant planet. Such an event happens about once a decade."

2 of 13 comments (clear)

  1. A minor nit ... by xmas2003 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I would have added "when viewed from Earth" to the "rare triple eclipse ... happens about once a decade" commentary since with planetary spacecraft, we might see these eclipse pictures pop up more frequently.

    The article also says "They then combined the images into one single picture to show more details of the planet and its moons" ... maybe I should send 'em my Hulk Lunar Eclipse Pictures since it would be cute to combine the Big Green Guy with the Big Gas Giant.

    --
    Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
    1. Re:A minor nit ... by xmas2003 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Yep - that's why I said "minor" nit ... I kinda wonder what the "worst case" situation would be - i.e. Earth 90 degrees outa "rotation sync" with Jupiter (other affects such as orbital plane and non-"circleness" of the orbit are probably very minor) would result in how much of the (true) sunlit side not visible from Earth - here's a hacked up ASCII diagram of what I'm trying to say - not to scale! ;-)

      EARTH (90 degree on "side" of the Sun)



      SUN_____________________________________JUPITER

      --
      Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease