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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."

5 of 13 comments (clear)

  1. The Rare Five-Spotted Jupiter by DLWormwood · · Score: 3, Funny
    Some the language in the article makes the planet sound like an endangered speices recently discovered. I can see the journal article now...

    Obscurus Celestialis

    "A giant creature prone to residing in dark, cold habitats, the rare Five-Spotted Jupiter is identifiable in the wild by its obvious bright stripes that take on a pastel hue under infrared light. Known to attract small creatures (like the Pizza Faced Io) that fly around it, as well as moving in large circles at very high speed, the identifing features of Celestialis can only be easily seen using a high-speed camera taking rapid fire exposures..."

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  2. Re:Those aren't moons!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    NASA reports the the following transmission just received from Jupiter: "All these worlds are yours except- what? They voted Bush? Forget it, then. We've failed."

  3. Re:A minor nit ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    These eclipses on Jupiter are the same as our lunar eclipses, which are visible to anyone, anywhere that can see the moon at the time they happen. Since we on Earth are so far from Jupiter, we see the entire sunlit side of Jupiter, so we see all the eclipses. Only a spacecraft close to Jupiter (or way off on some angle to it) would be unable to see the whole sunlit side. (I know that orbital paralax and our finite distance alter this a little, but not by much).

  4. 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

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    Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
  5. Where's a supreme being when you need one? by renehollan · · Score: 4, Funny

    What was that about a triple eclipse every 5000 years in The Fifth Element?

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    You could've hired me.