Categories: JupiterMissionsSolar Astronomysun

Watch Jupiter as a ‘Space Invader’

This great video created from images taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on May 13 and 14 show Jupiter as it comes close to the Sun (from our vantage point) in a solar conjunction. But what it really looks like is the old “Space Invaders” video game, with Jupiter marching across the screen. There’s even a couple of sungrazing comets “pewpew-ing” in like the laser cannon shots in the game, and a coronal mass ejection completes the scene as an explosion (which is actually more like “Asteroids.”) For more fun, the team who created this video at the Naval Research Laboratory’s Sungrazing Comets website takes the time to show all the different objects in the scene, which amazingly includes Callisto and Ganymede, two of Jupiter’s moons. All it needs is the funky video game background music.

H/T to Emily Lakdawalla and @Sungrazercomets

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/