{"id":215157,"url":"https://www.kudos365.com/news/215157-the-mutual-occultation-of-ganymede-and-io","short_url":"https://www.kudos365.com/news/215157","headline":"The Mutual Occultation of Ganymede and Io","content":"\u003cp\u003eNASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJupiter is one of the least lonely planets in the Solar System, at least when it comes to natural satellites. 115 moons have been discovered orbiting Jupiter so far! (Saturn has the most with 293, but who’s counting.) Ganymede and Io, two of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, met in the sky on October 20th, 2026. Today’s video captures the meeting, with Ganymede briefly blocking Io from view. This event, when an astronomical object passes in front of another and either completely or partially blocks it, is called a mutual occultation. The mutual occultations of Galilean moons are rare to witness because they require Earth’s edge-on view of their orbits. This occurs once every 6 years when Jupiter reaches its equinox and appears less “tilted”. Ganymede is also casting its shadow on Jupiter’s right side. Any fictional Jovian species within the shadow would experience a solar eclipse!\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVideo by Michael Wong\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/apod-2026-october-28-the-mutual-occultation-of-ganymede-and-io/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"\u003eWatch NASA's Astronomy Video of the Day\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","content_plain":"NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:\n\nJupiter is one of the least lonely planets in the Solar System, at least when it comes to natural satellites. 115 moons have been discovered orbiting Jupiter so far! (Saturn has the most with 293, but who’s counting.) Ganymede and Io, two of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, met in the sky on October 20th, 2026. Today’s video captures the meeting, with Ganymede briefly blocking Io from view. This event, when an astronomical object passes in front of another and either completely or partially blocks it, is called a mutual occultation. The mutual occultations of Galilean moons are rare to witness because they require Earth’s edge-on view of their orbits. This occurs once every 6 years when Jupiter reaches its equinox and appears less “tilted”. Ganymede is also casting its shadow on Jupiter’s right side. Any fictional Jovian species within the shadow would experience a solar eclipse!\n\n\nVideo by Michael Wong\n\nWatch NASA's Astronomy Video of the Day","published_at":"2026-10-28T14:16:00-07:00","updated_at":"2026-10-28T14:16:01-07:00","author":{"type":"Person","name":"Specola-","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/profiles/298285-specola"},"description":"Stay up-to-date with Specola on Kudos365. View their photo published Oct/28/2026 on Science and Technology. Browse your favorite topics and share your expertise, too.","type":"photo","image":"https://k365pi.imgix.net/site/apod/generated/e0154c44-45cb-4790-8c7b-02896cbefe92.jpeg?auto=compress,format\u0026fit=max\u0026w=1200\u0026h=1200\u0026q=48","categories":[{"name":"Science and Technology","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/categories/986-science-and-technology"}],"schema":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"CreativeWork","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/news/215157-the-mutual-occultation-of-ganymede-and-io","headline":"The Mutual Occultation of Ganymede and Io","image":"https://k365pi.imgix.net/site/apod/generated/e0154c44-45cb-4790-8c7b-02896cbefe92.jpeg?auto=compress,format\u0026fit=max\u0026w=1200\u0026h=1200\u0026q=48","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Specola-","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/profiles/298285-specola"},"datePublished":"2026-10-28T14:16:00-07:00","subjectOf":[{"@type":"Thing","name":"Science and Technology","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/categories/986-science-and-technology"}]}}