Solar eclipses on Jupiter
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Solar eclipses on Jupiter occur when any of the natural satellites of Jupiter pass in front of the Sun as seen from the planet Jupiter.[1]
For bodies that appear smaller in angular diameter than the Sun, the proper term would be a transit. For bodies that are larger than the apparent size of the Sun, the proper term would be an occultation.
There are five satellites capable of completely occulting the Sun: Amalthea[citation needed], Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. All of the others are too small or too distant to be able to completely occult the Sun, so can only transit the Sun. Most of the more distant satellites also have orbits that are strongly inclined to the plane of Jupiter's orbit, and would rarely be seen transiting Jupiter.
When the four largest satellites of Jupiter, the
Eclipses of the Sun from Jupiter are not particularly rare, since Jupiter is very large and its axial tilt (which is related to the plane of the orbits of its satellites) is relatively small—indeed, the vast majority of the orbits of all five of the objects capable of occulting the Sun will result in a solar occultation visible from somewhere on Jupiter, with every satellite except Callisto guaranteed to produce an eclipse on every orbit.
The related phenomenon of satellite eclipses in the shadow of Jupiter has been observed since the time of
Spacecraft can be used to observe the solar eclipses on Jupiter; these include Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 (1973 and 1974), Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 (1979), Galileo orbiter (1995–2003), Cassini–Huygens (2000), New Horizons (2007), and Juno (2016-present) observed the transits of their moons and its shadows.
Visibility from Jupiter
The
Gallery
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A computer-generated image showing a double shadow transit on Jupiter. The two satellites visible, Io and Europa, just to the right of the planet, are responsible for the shadows.
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A simulated view of an Io transit of Jupiter as viewed from the Earth, showing the shadow apparently leading Io.
References
- ^ "NASA's Juno Mission Checks Out Epic Io Eclipse on Jupiter | Space". www.space.com. 17 September 2019. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
- ^ "Shadows on Jupiter Cast by the Galilean Moons". Sydney Observatory. 2010. Archived from the original on 2014-05-08. Retrieved 2014-05-07.
External links
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: Jupiter, Io and Ganymede's Shadow (13 October 1995)
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: Io's Shadow (7 October 1996)
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: A Triple Eclipse on Jupiter (2 February 1998)
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: Jupiter, Io and Shadow (7 December 2002)
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: When Moons and Shadows Dance (27 February 2003)
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: Pastel Planet, Triple Eclipse (11 November 2004)
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: Shadows Across Jupiter (15 February 2013)
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: Jupiter Triple-Moon Conjunction (6 February 2015) - includes shadows only from Europa and distant Callisto
- Brufau, Rainer. (2021). Triple shadow phenomena on Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus from 1000 CE to 3000 CE (Version 0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5515898