Here’s Looking at You: Spooky Shadow Gives Jupiter a Giant Eye

This trick that the planet is looking back at you is actually a Hubble treat: An eerie, close-up view of Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system. Hubble was monitoring changes in Jupiter’s immense Great Red Spot (GRS) storm on April 21, 2014, when the shadow of the Jovian moon, Ganymede, swept across the center of the storm. This gave the giant planet the uncanny appearance of having a pupil in the center of a 10,000 mile-diameter “eye.” For a moment, Jupiter “stared” back at Hubble like a one-eyed giant Cyclops. Click on the image to view Jupiter from a distance. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) Caption: Ray Villard, Space Science Telescope Institute Acknowledgment: C. Go and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) via NASA http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/here-s-looking-at-you-spooky-shadow-gives-jupiter-a-giant-eye