Jupiter in Near-Infrared

Two of Jupiter's Galilean moons are visible in this image as well: Europa is the bright "star" to the right of Jupiter, and Io is the bright spot projected against the equatorial cloud bands towards the right edge of the disk. They can be seen to move in their orbits in the animation. Note: This image is part of an image sequence that demonstrates Jupiter's rotation. This movie can be found here. Technical Details: Jupiter was imaged at a wavelength of 1.69 microns using the Gemini Near-Infrared Imager (NIRI) on December 13, 2002 at 16:00 UT. This image is a combination of 20 individual 0.4-second exposures, which together make the equivalent of an 8-second exposure.