Hubble's image of Jupiter and Io
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NASA

Hubble captures Jupiter and Io
News story originally written on October 4, 1996

NASA'S Hubble Space Telescope has taken a rare joint portrait of Jupiter and its volcanically active moon Io, as the moon passes above the clouds of the giant gas planet.

The black spot on Jupiter visible in the crisp black-and- white image is Io's shadow. The shadow, about the size of Io (2,262 miles across), moves across the face of Jupiter at 38,000 miles per hour as the moon orbits 261,600 miles overhead. Io is roughly the same size as Earth's Moon.


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