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It’s not a great picture of Jupiter, but that’s not the point. The point is that the photograph was taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which is currently orbiting Saturn.
When the picture was taken, Cassini was approximately 1.8 billion kilometers (1.1 billion miles) from Jupiter. At the time of the photograph, the distance from Saturn to Jupiter is roughly the same as the distance from the Earth to Saturn. A similar picture of Earth would only light up a single pixel in Cassini’s camera.
Original Source: NASA/JPL/SSI News Release
About Fraser Cain
Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay.
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