Monday Bites: One, Two, Three In A Row

One, Two, Three In A Row: A Rare Triple Eclipse 

With nearly a hundred moons, solar eclipses are more than frequent over the Jovian landscape. Though the tiny asteroids fail to cover up the Sun, they do bring on an impressive show of a transit — something which we Earthlings can hope to see once or twice in our lifetimes when the planet Venus or Mercury races as a tiny dot across the solar disc.

Our solar system is an ever-dynamic place. Sadly, not having enough satellites, space probes, or even space stations at some of the vantage points, we do miss a lot. Except on March 28, 2004, we were lucky enough to glimpse at a rare triple eclipse as Io, Ganymede, and Callisto slid between Jupiter and the Sun.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center
Video and eclipse images courtesy of NASA/ESA/University of Arizona/E. Karkoschka.

This event was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, which explains why Jupiter lacks its familiar palette of colors. Io is the white circle at the center, its shadow is on the left; Ganymede is the blue circle, its shadow almost touches the left edge; for Callisto, only its shadow can be seen at the upper right edge while the moon hovers somewhere outside the frame.