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How can Jupiter and the Earth have light coming at them from different angles?
by nixy 17y ago
How can Jupiter and the Earth have light coming at them from different angles?
- nixy 17y agoNever mind, I think I figured it out.
- maxcap 17y agoI'm curious - could you please explain?
- jcl 17y agoIt only seems weird because we are used to scenes where the sun's rays are roughly parallel. In this picture, the sun represents a point light source, so the objects are lit from different directions. (Think of balls suspended in space around a lightbulb. The balls on the far side of the bulb from you will appear lit from the front, while the balls on the near side will appear lit from the back, and those between, from the side.)
- dhughes 17y agoMars is in the middle with Earth towards the Sun and Jupiter on the other side of Mars, whatever angle they were at when the picture was taken, their different orbits, probably has something to do with it.
- electromagnetic 17y agoBecause they're in different orbits. Earth is closer to the sun than Mars, while Jupiter is about 5 times as distant (likely more in this photograph). Earth and Jupiter in this photograph are likely in perpendicular positions relative to the sun. Mars is obviously near-parallel to Earth's terminator line, so to have Jupiter in the same picture it has to run on a nearly straight line through Earth from Mars, given this distance is likely ~7AU or more, Jupiter is on a whole different angle from the sun. Crudely drawn I believe it should be something(!) like this: M E (S) J
- thamer 17y agoThis picture might help: http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/mars/earth.jupiter.orbits.gif http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/mars/earth.jupiter.orb... (Found on the reddit page linked at the end of the article.)