Jupiter

Postcard courtesy of STSI/JPL/NASA. Narrative courtesy of Alessandro T. (age 10).

While I was looking for Jupiter, I saw another bright dot in the sky. I moved my telescope towards the dot to get a closer look. I focussed on this small, yellow object. It was just a star! As I was planet-hunting, this didn't hold my interest for long.

I then spotted Jupiter. I could just see its bands of colour and three of its many moons around it through my telescope. The dark red bands are called belts, and the lighter bands are called zones. I felt really lucky to see this and once again, summoned my whole family to share in this sight.

Caption: This image of Jupiter was taken by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC-2) in wide field mode aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The dark spot on the disk of Jupiter is the shadow of the inner moon, Io.

Alessandro T. is a 10 year old home schooled student in New Zealand.