This true-colour simulated view of Jupiter is composed of 4 images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 7, 2000. To illustrate what Jupiter would have looked like if the cameras had a field-of-view large enough to capture the entire planet, the cylindrical map was projected onto a globe. The resolution is about 144 kilometers (89 miles) per pixel.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona

This true-colour composite frame, made from narrow angle images taken on 12 December 2000, captures Io and its shadow in transit against the disk of Jupiter. The distance of the spacecraft from Jupiter was 19.5 million kilometres. The image scale is 117 kilometres per pixel.

The entire body of Io, about the size of Earth's Moon, is periodically flexed as it speeds around Jupiter. As a result of its non-circular orbit, it feels the periodically changing gravitational pull of the planet. The heat arising in Io's interior from this continual flexure makes it the most volcanically active body in the solar system, with more than 100 active volcanoes. The white and reddish colors on its surface are due to the presence of different sulfurous materials. The black areas are silicate rocks.

Credits: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The atmosphere and volcanic hotspots of Jupiter's moon Io are apparent in this view of the moon in eclipse, taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

Credits: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA's Galileo spacecraft captured this false-color image of a storm on Jupiter. The inset shows areas of lightning at the same location as the storm, as viewed from the planet's dark side.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

This image sequence, taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft as it approached Jupiter, shows the motions, over a 16 hour-period, of two satellites embedded in Jupiter's ring. The moon Adrastea is the fainter of the two, and Metis is the brighter. Images such as these will be used to refine the orbits of the two bodies. The composition was made from images taken during a 40-hour sequence of the Jovian ring on 11 December 2000.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona