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Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Io and Europa (MVIC only)

Io and Europa (MVIC only)
Io and Europa (MVIC only) Io and Europa shone as jewel-toned crescents to the MVIC imaging spectrometer on New Horizons as the spacecraft sped away from Jupiter at 10:34 UT on March 2, 2007. Europa appears to be the larger of the two, but that's an optical illusion because of their different distances from the spacecraft: larger Io (3,630 kilometers in diameter) is 4.6 million kilometers from New Horizons, while smaller Europa (3,122 kilometers in diameter) is closer at 3.8 million kilometers away. NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI

When this image was taken, Io was on the far side of Jupiter from New Horizons, while Europa was closer to Jupiter than New Horizons. Being on the far side of Jupiter, Io's night side is lit by sunlight reflected off of Jupiter's cloud tops. Europa's night side is not, because the side of Europa that is receiving reflected light from Jupiter is the side that is facing away from New Horizons.