A colourful family portrait combining images of Jupiter and three of its Galilean moons – Ganymede, Europa and Io – as seen by NASA’s Juno orbiter. The images were captured by the spacecraft’s public-domain JunoCam instrument and processed by two “citizen scientists.” Kevin Gill produced the images of Jupiter (far right), Ganymede (far left) and its icy neighbour Europa while Thomas Thomopoulos processed an image of volcanic Io. Launched in August 2011, Juno has been orbiting Jupiter since July 2016. Data collected by the JunoCam imager is available to the public for processing and sharing.
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First quarter Moon meets Jupiter and Spica in the evening sky
Observer’s in the UK and Western Europe should look low to the southwest an hour after sunset on Friday, 30 June to glimpse the almost first quarter Moon a low-power binocular field of view to the right of Jupiter in bright twilight. The following night finds the waxing gibbous Moon forming a near isosceles triangle with the planet and first-magnitude star Spica in Virgo.
See ringed planet Saturn at its best in July 2019
Observers in Western Europe with a clear sky around local midnight cannot fail to notice the conspicuous ‘star’ that is Jupiter low in the south. But look a span-and-a-half of an outstretched hand at arm’s length to Jupiter’s left and you’ll find another giant of the solar system – Saturn. The ringed planet is closest to Earth for 2019 on 9 July, so here is our quick observing guide.