Jupiter System Spotted by COR 1 - November 29, 2007

Jupiter entered the field of view of the COR1 telescope on the STEREO Ahead spacecraft on November 29th, 2007. Along with the planet itself, one can clearly make out some of the major Jovian moons. The first moons to enter the COR1 field are Ganymede and Callisto, which start out very close to each other. These are followed closely by Jupiter itself, which is heavily saturated in the COR1 images. As time progresses, and the moons revolve about Jupiter, Ganymede and Callisto separate from each other, and become visible as separate moons. One also sees Io and Europa come out from in front of Jupiter, so that there's a period when all four major moons are visible. Io is the hardest of the four moons to see, because it spends much of its time very close to Europa. The feature on the right side of the movie is the occulter which is used to block out the bright sunlight.
The second movie zooms in on the region around Jupiter, to show better how the four moons revolve about the planet. At the end of the movie, the moons are obscured by the COR1 occulter.

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