How big?

[Gfamily]

In preparing the slides on "What's Up In December" for our astro club, I mentioned the upcoming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and included the attached showing the conjunction relative to the size of the full moon.

In looking a bit more at the scale of the orbits of Jupiter's outer moons, I was astonished to find that the diameter of the orbits would cover 3° across the sky - at Jupiter's current position (about the width of Orion's Belt.

When at opposition (and therefore at about the closest distance) the outermost moons orbits would cover 5° of the sky - more than the distance between Castor and Pollux.

It surprised me at least.

[helicon]

Definitely surprising!

[Gfamily]

And as of today, Pasiphae (one of the outer moons) is further from Jupiter than Saturn is.