This just goes to show that you never know.

We were surprised ourselves to learn that SOHO could in fact see two of Jupiter's moons with our LASCO C2 instrument. While Jupiter had passed through our field of views many times over the almost 10 years of SOHO observations, no one stopped to examine and measure whether we could see any moons.

The question arose on a SOHO hunter chat page and Tony Hoffman wrote his reply with details about how it could be determined that, yes, two of Jupiter's moons were indeed visible and where they were. Further calculations by Karl Battams of the Naval Research Laboratory confirmed this. The "blooming" effect from oversaturated pixels on the SOHO detector creates the "wings" to either side of the planet. We think many scientists will be saying "Well, I'll be darned" to themselves at this news.

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Previous Picks of the Week

SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display.

If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov.