A Reminder Of Just How Gigantic Jupiter Is

Planets are an abstract thing formankind to look at.  We cannot really fathom the size of our brother and sister planetsin the solar system.  Here is alittle help..

-Mort

If you’re looking for a reminder of how impossibly huge Jupiter is, just take a gander at this image from Cassini. That tiny satellite in front is Io…which is almost the same size and relative distance as our own Moon.

Of course, other than their closeness in size – Io and the Moon are the 13th and 14th largest objects in the solar system, with the Moon about 86.8% the volume of the Moon – the two objects aren’t all that similar. While the Moon is more or less geologically dead, Io is the most volcanic body in the solar system. What’s amazing is that the distance of Io to Jupiter and the Moon to Earth are both roughly 350,000 to 400,000 kilometers. As you can probably remember from the Apollo photographs, Earth doesn’t look quite as big as Jupiter from such a distance.

Read more at the source here: http://io9.com/5900093/a-breathtaking-reminder-of-just-how-gigantic-jupiter-really-is