Stunning Imagery of Jupiter's Moons, Io and Europa, in Orbit

First launched on October 15, 1997, the Cassini-Huygens space-research mission was a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency.  Its mission was to send a probe to study the planet Saturn and its system.

Of course, along the way to Saturn, Cassini had numerous opportunities to explore other planets in our solar system and performed detailed fly-bys of Venus, Earth, and Jupiter.

Cassini made the closest approach every to Jupiter and made many scientific measurements of the giant planet.  Additionally, it took about 26,000 images of Jupiter, its faint rings, and its moons over the course of a 6-month flyby.  It produced the most detailed global color portrait of the planet yet, in which the smalled visible features were only about 60km across.

Thanks to the sheer quantity of images taken, still shots were able to be used as “frames” to create an extraordinarily high-quality video rendition of the moons Io and Europa in their orbital process.  At 50-seconds in length and in crystal clear resolution, it is a stunning view of the majesty of space from one of the solar system’s most famous celestial bodies.