Moon Meets Jupiter
What's that below the Moon? Jupiter -- and its largest moons. Many skygazers across planet Earth enjoyed the close conjunction of Earth's Moon passing nearly in front of Jupiter in mid-June. The featured image is a single exposure of the event taken from Morón de la Frontera , Spain . The sunlit lunar crescent on the left is overexposed, while the Moon's night side, on the right, is only faintly illuminated by Earthshine . Lined up diagonally below the Moon, left to right, are Jupiter's bright Galilean satellites: Callisto , Ganymede , Io (hard to see as it is very near to Jupiter), and Europa . In fact , Callisto, Ganymede, and Io are larger than Earth's Moon, while Europa is only slightly smaller. NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno is currently orbiting Jupiter and made a close pass near Io only a week ago. If you look up in the night sky tonight , you will again see two of the brightest objects angularly close together -- because tonight is another Moon-Jupiter conjunction .