Europa Produces a Solar Eclipse on Io
20th December 2002
At 04:52 UT on 20th December 2002, The shadow of Jupiter's moon Europa fell on Io and caused a solar eclipse there. On earth we see this event as a dimming of the bightness of Io
These images were recorded using a Vesta Pro webcam. The image on the right shows Jupiter, Io and Europa after the eclipse. The images on the left are closeups of the two moons before, during and after the eclipse. The dimming of Io during the eclipse is clear.
The brightnesses of Io and Europa were measured from the images taken during the eclipse and the results plotted. It can be seen that before and after the eclipse, Io was slightly brighter than Europa but dimmed to approximately 30% of the brightness of Europa at maximum eclipse.