Europa Eclipses the Sun as Seen from Ganymede
16 July 1997

[Enlarge Details] [Eclipses in Cyberspace] [Go Home!] [Back to Key]
According to Guide, this eclipse is total over Ganymede's high northern latitudes, so in this I've placed the observer at about the equivalent of Greenland's earthly latitude and chosen a longitude that would put Jupiter near the meridian.

Jupiter is 7 1/2 degrees wide in Ganymede's sky (you could just about cover it with your fist). Comet Hale-Bopp, a few months past perihelion, is diving below the ecliptic in the lower right. At this moment, the sun is 6.27 arc minutes in apparent diameter, and Europa is 6.30 minutes. (I'll work out the eclipse duration shortly -- one to three minutes is my top-of-the-head guess from playing with the computer.) Callisto is a very thin crescent to the right of the eclipsed Sun, a whole array of the inner planets is to the left.

Venus shines at -1.1 magnitude; Mars at 3.9; Earth (a very thin crescent, only 4 arc seconds across) shines at a paltry 5.9. Callisto is also a very thin crescent, a fraction of a circle 5.65 arc minutes in diameter. Regulus is the bright star just left of Jupiter's dark limb, and the Lion's head and mane curl around the top of Jupiter (the planet is sitting in the big cat's paws as if Leo were playing with a beach ball).

I'm guessing that the light scattered around Jupiter by its highest "air" would be blue. And while I suspect Jupiter's ring would be visible at this phase (Jupiter is 0.86% illuminated), I have no idea how brightly or at what angle it would shine, so I have left it out. The glacial blue color on Ganymede's icefields is artistic license, as is the slight "haze." The former may be defensible but the latter is purest fantasy.