Jupiter’s Galilean moons

Get to know Jupiter’s largest moons - four fascinating worlds in their own right

Jupiter, the king of the planets, reaches opposition on 7 December. Around that time, the gas giant is shining at its brightest and visible throughout the night, in the constellation of Taurus, the Bull – which makes now a great time to observe and find out about the planet’s four largest moons. Discovered in 1610 by Italian pioneer Galileo Galilei, the four moons were soon all named after lovers of Zeus, the Greek name of Jupiter. For another 360 or so years, the quartet remained nothing more than specks of light, until Jupiter was visited by NASA’s unmanned Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in the late 1970s and the Galileo mission in the 1990s. Their close-up images revealed stunning details on the four worlds, each of which has its own…

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BBC Sky at Night United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, December 2024

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