Io in front of Jupiter
Io in front of Jupiter
This true-colour image mosaic was created with telescopic images acquired by the Cassini spacecraft on 12 December 2000. It shows Io transiting in front of Jupiter's disk and the moon's shadow. Io is about the same size as Earth's moon and is strongly influenced by Jupiter's gravitational field. So much heat is generated inside the moon that magmas form and volcanoes constantly erupt on its surface. The cloud bands in Jupiter's atmosphere partly move around the planet in its direction of rotation, but also in the opposite direction. The 'Great Red Spot' in the left half of the image is the largest known storm in the Solar System.
