EUROPA AND GANYMEDE

2009 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ASTRONOMY

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EUROPA OCCULTS GANYMEDE:

On May 8th, in Australia, was recorded a very rare event:

One of Jupiter's moons eclipsing another.

The photo is an animation of Europa passing directly in front of Ganymede.


It's made using a 13-inch telescope and a digital video camera.
"Seeing was not good, so I was only able to use 250 of the 1200 frames I collected" says Wesley the photographer.

Nevertheless, it is an extraordinary observation, showing the distant moons as genuine world-like disks as they pass in "mutual occultation."

Earth is moving through the orbital plane of Jupiter's satellites, allowing the moons to line up for events such as Wesley recorded on May 8th.

This special geometry comes along approximately once every 6 years.

The last time was in 2002-2003, and now it is happening again.

The phenomena occur between April and December of 2009.

Observers around the world can see Jupiter's moons passing one in front of another as they circle the giant planet.

As part of the International Year of Astronomy, professional astronomers are organizing a worldwide observing campaign to record as many of these events as possible.










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