Comments on: STEREO spots Jupiter slipping behind the Sun

By: Jupiter Slips Behind the Sun | Open Culture

Jupiter Slips Behind the Sun | Open Culture — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 06:33:38 +0000

[...] Meanwhile, you can see Jupiter’s moons orbiting it.” Get more on this cool footage from Discover Magazine and be sure to check out the Bad Astronomer Channel on YouTube, which features more videos along [...]

By: obama - president

obama - president — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:06:25 +0000

I wonder what Einstein would say if he could see this

By: Júpiter pasando por detrás del Sol

Júpiter pasando por detrás del Sol — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:01:48 +0000

[...] FUENTES: NASA, BadAstronomy. [...]

By: glenn

glenn — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:39:29 +0000

i thought planets went around the sun counterclockwise?

By: Júpiter escondiéndose tras el Sol [Video] - Ojo Cientifico

Júpiter escondiéndose tras el Sol [Video] - Ojo Cientifico — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:57:17 +0000

[...] esta ocasión traemos un interesantísimo video captado por la STEREO B en el que apreciamos a Júpiter y a sus cuatro lunas esconderse tras el Sol desde el punto de vista [...]

By: Alex Antunes

Alex Antunes — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:27:37 +0000

Hi. I found it humorous you found this result days before I did… given I work with STEREO. The power of journalism! (I do give you the credit for ‘the kill’ in my writeup at http://tinyurl.com/jupitercor1) As far as the Jupiter-Sun-ejecta position, the CME is not towards Jupiter in any meaningful sense, since the CME is still close to the Sun– within 4 solar radii, else it would not be seen by Cor1. STEREO is, over 2 days, nearly stationary, and while the Sun is rotating it’s also stationary, so it is Jupiter’s orbital motion doing the movement seen. Hope that helps in framing this.

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:26:31 +0000

Well, it’s all a matter of perspective

By: Greg in Austin

Greg in Austin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:31:37 +0000

@Hein, @David,

OK, Now I see what you’re saying. I would mostly agree that if the white line represents the surface of the sun, then it does not look like Jupiter will pass behind it. However, Jupiter is clearly passing behind the sun’s atmosphere and ejecta, and if the disc were not there, Jupiter would seem to pass behind the sun.

As to the size of Jupiter and its moons, from the STEREO caption for the video,

“Jupiter itself is largely saturated in the movie, to bring out the moons and the faint solar corona.”

In other words, its much brighter than normal in this video, which makes it look bigger. You don’t need 160x magnification to see its moons. I’ve observed Jupiter and its 4 moons with my 12×50 binoculars.

By: Hein

Hein — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:13:56 +0000

@Greg, @David, @Phil

I must agree with David – Jupiter is only slipping behind the occulting disk of the spacecraft, not the Sun as such – if the sun is the white line overlay.

@Greg

Jupiter needs 160x magnification to see the disk properly, while the moon is massive at 1x. The Sun is rather larger than the Moon.

I’m sure this movie is authentic, there’s just a few issues that needs to be cleared up!

By: Greg in Austin

Greg in Austin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:28:56 +0000

@Hein,

Perhaps because we’re looking at the light reflected by Jupiter and its moons, they appear larger than they really are? I’m not certain.

How big does Jupiter look to you in the night sky compared to the moon, or the sun?

By: Greg in Austin

Greg in Austin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:21:28 +0000

I’m sure David was being sarcastic. Even a 7th grader would know that Jupiter is farther away from the Sun than the Earth, which means it could never pass between us and the sun.

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:03:11 +0000

David, what are you talking about? The last paragraph is very clear on what’s happening in the video. And where is there a “mess”?

By: David

David — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:15:07 +0000

Why is no one else debunking this video? You can clearly see that Jupiter is only blocked by STEREO’s own occulting disk, not the sun’s disk which is the white line. When I found the video on NASA’a website they make no claim that Jupiter “went bihind the sun”. Phil, please correct yourself and straighten out the mess you’ve made!

By: Hein

Hein — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:44:08 +0000

Looks fantastic, but could someone explain.

Jupiter is about 5 billion+ km away from the sun, how can it be so large in this pic proportionally to the sun?

Jupiter should be 1/4 pixel and the sun’s edge almost a straight line since it is so big relatively speaking it’s curve would be indescernable.

To put it another way – if we had a pic of Jupiter in the foreground and the sun in the background, Jupiter would be the size of the sun in this pic and the sun the size of Jupiter in this pic.

Anybody?

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:00:39 +0000

Phil,
Ironies of ironies, at the end of the video a scroll add appeared advertising “The UFO Hunters” on the History channel. I’ve seen some of the crap that passes for science on the History channel these days, it’s disheartening.

By: William Thompson

William Thompson — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:00:20 +0000

I notice a number of questions about the distortion at the end of the movie. This is caused by the heavy vignetting just at the occulter edge. In effect, only a part of the aperture is being used in that region of the image, and the effective resolution is different in the transverse and radial directions.

By: Zippy the Pinhead

Zippy the Pinhead — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:11:52 +0000

As Opiecan says, there is a distortion at the end as Jupiter goes behind the sun. Is this an artifact of the filter or a gravitational lens effect?

By: Unstrung Photo

Unstrung Photo — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:20:25 +0000

wow! everyone I know must see this.

By: Gonzo

Gonzo — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:45:35 +0000

Very, very cool. I had seen the still yesterday or something, but that animation made my night.

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:38:40 +0000

@ CR, and garth, Try one of these URL links: youtube.com/watch?v=foBUaOKsIZM&fmt=8 youtube.com/watch?v=foBUaOKsIZM&fmt=16 youtube.com/watch?v=foBUaOKsIZM&fmt=18 Just copy-and-paste into your browser's address bar. Furthermore, if in future you have the "This video is no longer available" problem, just add &fmt=8 or &fmt=16 or &fmt=18 to the end of the YouTube video URL.

By: Uncle Al

Uncle Al — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:50:12 +0000

Jupiter’s displacement is ~0.1 degree from the edge of the photosphere Did General Relativity displace the image to spec? Are the Galilean moons’ orbits more strongly deformed as they graze closer to the sun?

By: Torbjörn Larsson, OM

Torbjörn Larsson, OM — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:59:22 +0000

Ooh, positively orgastronomical. And Saturn too? Can’t wait!

By: CR

CR — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:48:33 +0000

Nope, refreshing didn’t work, either. I get “no longer available.” I’m getting that on a lot of different links on different blogs/forums. What’s up, You Tube? Sheesh!

By: Synopsis

Synopsis — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:06:18 +0000

I guess they’ve moved pages around since Phil made those blog posts. Anyway I found them eventually, very cool.

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:23:44 +0000

@ Synopsis,

The STEREO video links work for me.