Triple Eclipse on Jupiter

A lunar eclipse on the Earth is an interesting phenomenon, but consider the variety of eclipse phenomena on Jupiter which has 16 moons! An image captured on March 28, 2004 by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a rare alignment of three of Jupiter's largest moons Ð Io, Ganymede, and Callisto Ð across the planet's face, producing a triple eclipse.

Io's shadow is located just above center and to the left; Ganymede's on the planet's left edge; and Callisto's near the right edge. Only two of the moons, however, are visible in this image. Io is the white circle in the center of the image, and Ganymede is the blue circle at upper right. Callisto is out of the image and to the right.

The NASA graphic below shows the relative positions of the moons.

The NASA graphic below labels the image of the eclipse.

The image is credited to NASA, ESA and E. Karkoschka of the University of Arizona. The detailed web reference is http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2004/30/