Montage of images of Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io

© NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Goddard Space Flight Cente

Infrared Jupiter, erupting Io

To celebrate World Space Week, we’re featuring this montage of images of Jupiter courtesy of the New Horizons probe’s flyby of the planet in 2007. If Jupiter looks a little different than you’re used to seeing, it’s because it was imaged using the space probe’s near-infrared imaging spectrometer. In this false-colour image, Jupiter’s high-altitude clouds, like its stormy Great Red Spot, are rendered white, while deeper cloud formations take on reddish hues. The planet's innermost moon, Io, is captured in a true-colour composite image during one of its frequent volcanic eruptions. A close look will show lava is glowing red beneath the blue and white plume of particles being ejected into the moon’s thin atmosphere.

Space Week is a U.N.-recognized event that runs each year from October 4, which is the anniversary of the launch of Sputnik in 1957, to October 10, the anniversary of the signing of the Outer Space Treaty in 1967. This year’s theme is 'Satellites Improve Life.'