Mutual Events Among Jupiter's Satellites

[Centaur]

The Earth passes through Jupiter’s equatorial plane approximately once every six years and will next do so on 2009 APR 16. The orbital planes of Jupiter’s four great Galilean satellites lie close to the planet’s equatorial plane. That means now we’re in a period that allows for the mutual occultation/transits and shadow occultation/transits among the satellites, i.e. satellite to satellite and not necessarily involving Jupiter.

Below is my calculated list of mutual satellite events for March; none involve shadows. In universal time they occur only on the 27th and 28th. There will be many more in April, and I’ll present them later this month.

A transit occurs when a body passes in front of one with a larger angular diameter.
An occultation occurs when a body passes in front of one with a smaller angular diameter.

#1 Io
#2 Europa
#3 Ganymede
#4 Callisto

2009 MAR 27
05:42:58 UT #4 begins partial transit of #3
05:46:15 UT #4 transits northern 17% of diameter of #3
05:49:32 UT #4 ends partial transit of #3

2009 MAR 28
03:04:46 UT #4 begins partial occultation of #1
03:06:48 UT #4 occults northern 29% of diameter of #1
03:08:50 UT #4 ends partial occultation of #1

Photos and descriptions of these events would be welcome additions to this thread.

[Centaur]

I created the two graphics seen below to illustrate the two events described in my post that initiated this thread.

http://www.curtrenz.com/GalSat090327.JPG

http://www.curtrenz.com/GalSat090328.JPG

[trinitree88]

Centaur. Nice job, Curt....now that's something you don't see every day.:clap::cool: pete

[ULtere]

Mutual events between Jupiter's satellites observed in Catania during the
PHEMU97 campaign. C. Blanco Corresponding Author Contact Information