A couple of days ago I uploaded the Io, Ganymede transit of Jupiter. Unfortunately, my original video was missing a few frames of the transit, but a fellow astronomer was kind enough to send me the missing images, so here is the finished video of the complete Io, Ganymede transit.

If for some reason you cannot see the video on the main page, just click the little clock icon in the bottom left of this post to open it in a new window. You should be able to play the video then.

-Pete

Today we’re going to be taking a little look at Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun and largest planet in the solar system. Jupiter is the first of the gas giants and lies beyond the orbit of Mars and the asteroid belt in our solar system. With a small telescope, or binoculars, you should be able to see the Galilean moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. These moons were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610 and are the largest of Jupiter’s 67 moons. They are named after the lovers of Zeus in Greek mythology. Jupiter has a mass of 317.82 x Earths and a mean radius of 69,911 KM (43,441 Mi). However, for such a large planet it has a surprisingly short day at just under 10 hours in length. Being a gas giant the planet doesn’t have a solid surface. It may have a rocky inner core, but this is believed to be surrounded by a layer of metallic hydrogen and an incredibly stormy outer atmosphere. The pressures down towards the core are enourmous and the temperatures can range from -148°C (-243°F) at the very top of the atmosphere to 24,000°C (43,000°F) at the core. In the image above, taken with the Slooh High Mag Telescope, we can see Jupiter and one of it’s moons, Europa. The first thing that stands out are the various bands on the planet. The redder bands are areas of low pressure gases which are sinking through the atmosphere and the lighter coloured bands are cooler areas of high pressure gases which are rising. You can also see the Great Red Spot, or GRS, which is a massive anticyclone (3x the size of Earth) that has been raging since before telescopic observations of Jupiter began over 400 years ago.  Like the Earth, Jupiter has a magnetosphere. It is similar to our own planets magnetic field, but it is much more powerful (around 20,000 times more intense), pulling in charged particles from the solar wind and forming intense bands of deadly radiation. Europa is Jupiter’s 4th largest moon and has a radius of 1,561 KM (970 Mi). It is an icy moon, but is believed that the gravitational pull of Jupiter and the other moons on Europa produces enough heat for a liquid ocean to exist under the frozen surface. This could be a likely place for the existence of life in our solar system other than the Earth. -Pete
Pop-upView Separately

Today we’re going to be taking a little look at Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun and largest planet in the solar system. Jupiter is the first of the gas giants and lies beyond the orbit of Mars and the asteroid belt in our solar system. With a small telescope, or binoculars, you should be able to see the Galilean moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. These moons were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610 and are the largest of Jupiter’s 67 moons. They are named after the lovers of Zeus in Greek mythology.

Jupiter has a mass of 317.82 x Earths and a mean radius of 69,911 KM (43,441 Mi). However, for such a large planet it has a surprisingly short day at just under 10 hours in length. Being a gas giant the planet doesn’t have a solid surface. It may have a rocky inner core, but this is believed to be surrounded by a layer of metallic hydrogen and an incredibly stormy outer atmosphere. The pressures down towards the core are enourmous and the temperatures can range from -148°C (-243°F) at the very top of the atmosphere to 24,000°C (43,000°F) at the core.

In the image above, taken with the Slooh High Mag Telescope, we can see Jupiter and one of it’s moons, Europa. The first thing that stands out are the various bands on the planet. The redder bands are areas of low pressure gases which are sinking through the atmosphere and the lighter coloured bands are cooler areas of high pressure gases which are rising. You can also see the Great Red Spot, or GRS, which is a massive anticyclone (3x the size of Earth) that has been raging since before telescopic observations of Jupiter began over 400 years ago. 

Like the Earth, Jupiter has a magnetosphere. It is similar to our own planets magnetic field, but it is much more powerful (around 20,000 times more intense), pulling in charged particles from the solar wind and forming intense bands of deadly radiation.

Europa is Jupiter’s 4th largest moon and has a radius of 1,561 KM (970 Mi). It is an icy moon, but is believed that the gravitational pull of Jupiter and the other moons on Europa produces enough heat for a liquid ocean to exist under the frozen surface. This could be a likely place for the existence of life in our solar system other than the Earth.

-Pete

ScienceCasts: The 2012 Perseid Meteor Shower (by ScienceAtNASA)

Visit http://science.nasa.gov/ for more.

The Perseid meteor shower is underway. There’s more to see than meteors, however, when the shower peaks on August 11th through 13th. The brightest planets in the solar system are lining up in the middle of the display.

Source: youtube.com

Top