NASA's Juno spacecraft recently photographed Jupiter and two moons, Io and Europa.
A citizen scientist took the image on Jan. 12, 2022, during the spacecraft's 39th close flyby. The photos show the gas giant planet's fascinating moons in the same frame.
NASA’s Juno mission captured this view of Jupiter’s southern hemisphere during the spacecraft’s 39th close flyby of the planet on Jan. 12, 2022. Zooming in on the right portion of the image (Figure B) reveals two more worlds in the same frame: Jupiter’s intriguing moons Io (left) and Europa (right).
NASA Juno Spacecraft Captures Photo of Jupiter, Io, Europa
Jupiter is seen in all of its splendor in the stunning photograph. The spacecraft shot it during the flyby two months ago.
Juno was launched in 2011 and has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016, researching the planet's composition gravitational and magnetic fields during that period.
Digital Trends explained that Io and Europa are two of the most well-known of Jupiter's moons, which number at least 80 since they are among the biggest, together with Ganymede and Callisto.
"At the time this image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 38,000 miles (61,000 kilometers) from Jupiter's cloud tops, at a latitude of about 52 degrees south," NASA said in a statement.
Andrea Luck, a citizen scientist, snapped the images using raw data from the JunoCam sensor.
Amazing Timelapse of Europa & Io orbiting Jupiter, shot from space probe Cassini
Original video by NASA-JPL’s Kevin Gill pic.twitter.com/6Xnl3w52ES— Amazing Physics (@amazing_physics) March 15, 2022
ALSO READ: NASA Juno Spacecraft Spots Meteor Hitting Through Jupiter Skies
About Jupiter's Moon
According to Inverse, the two smallest Galilean moons are Io and Europa. These moons are named after Galileo Galleli, who discovered them in 1610 C.E. and recorded them for the first time.
What Galileo couldn't know at the time - and what scientists didn't completely comprehend until the Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 missions visited Jupiter in the 1970s - is that these worlds are active and, in the case of Europa, possibly life-bearing.
They're the smaller Galilean moons, being about the same size as our moon, while their larger siblings Ganymede and Callisto are around the same size as Mercury. Like paradise and hell, the difference between Io and Europa is dramatic.
Jupiter's tremendous gravity stretches and squeezes Io, Jupiter's innermost big moon, resulting in a molten core that spews sulfurous lava hundreds of kilometers into space. It's difficult to think of a more hostile moon in the Solar System.
Europa, on the other hand, is likely to be one of the most fascinating regions in the Solar System. Water makes up the majority of the globe. A gigantic global ocean hides behind an ice shell tainted with radioactive salts, dwarfing all of Earth's water. The ocean is thought to be one of the greatest areas on the planet to look for life beyond Earth, and it will be the focus of a NASA project dubbed the Europa Clipper.
One will be roasted alive if you were on Europa's surface, which gets battered by Jupiter's deadly radiation. However, the 11 to 15-mile deep ice shell protects any life that may have existed there. Water from the deep interior occasionally rises to the surface in the form of geysers.
When the Clipper launches in 2024, scientists will be one step closer to seeing the Earth in incredible detail. But for now, astronomers have to make do with brief peeks from Juno, which has a lot of them happily.
RELATED ARTICLE: NASA Juno Mission Captures Stunning Photo of Ganymede Casting Giant Shadow Over Jupiter [LOOK]
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