Io over Jupiter

Wallpaper Description:

Io over Jupiter. Jupiter's moon Io, roughly the size of Earth's moon, appears to be skimming Jupiter's cloud tops, but it's actually 310, 000 miles (500,000 kilometers) away. Io zips around Jupiter in 1.8 days, whereas our moon circles Earth every 28 days. The conspicuous black spot on Jupiter is Io's shadow and is about the size of the moon itself (2,262 miles or 3,640 kilometers across). This shadow sails across the face of Jupiter at 38,000 mph (17 kilometers per second). The smallest details visible on Io and Jupiter measure 93 miles (150 kilometers) across, or about the size of Connecticut.

J. Spencer (Lowell Observatory) and NASA / ESA