Amalthea (moon) - Views To and From Amalthea

Views To and From Amalthea

From Jupiter's surface—or rather, from just above its cloudtops—Amalthea would appear very bright, shining with a magnitude of −4.7, similar to that of Venus from Earth. At only 5 arcminutes across, its disc would be barely discernible and it would thus appear starlike. Amalthea's orbital period is only slightly longer than its parent planet's day (about 20% in this case), which means it would cross Jupiter's sky very slowly. The time between moonrise and moonset would be over 29 hours.

From the surface of Amalthea, Jupiter would look enormous: 46 degrees across, it would appear roughly 92 times larger than the full moon. Because Amalthea is in synchronous rotation, Jupiter would not appear to move, and would be invisible from one side of Amalthea. The Sun would disappear behind the planet's bulk for an hour and a half each revolution. Amalthea's short rotation period gives it just under six hours of daylight. Though Jupiter would appear 900 times brighter than the full moon, its light would be spread over an area some 8500 times greater and it would not look as bright per surface unit.