Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and Ganymede’s Shadow

Hubble treats astronomers to gorgeous close-up views of the eerie outer planets. But it's a bit of a trick when it seems like the planet's looking back at you! This happened on April 21, 2014, when Hubble was being used to monitor changes in Jupiter's immense Great Red Spot (GRS) storm. During the exposures, the shadow of the Jovian moon Ganymede swept across the center of the GRS. This gave the giant planet the uncanny appearance of having a pupil in the center of a 10,000-mile-diameter "eye." Momentarily, Jupiter took on the appearance of a Cyclops planet!

About the data

The image was created from Hubble data from proposal 13631 : PI: A. Simon (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), G. Orton (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), J. Rogers (University of Cambridge, UK), and M. Wong and I. de Pater (University of California, Berkeley).