Looming in the sky...

[ffutures]

I'm trying to work out how big Jupiter looks in the sky from its moons - I make it about an 8 degree disk when viewed from Ganymede, compared to our moon at about half a degree. Does this sound plausible? Or has someone calculated this properly somewhere?

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Ganymede's mean orbital radius is 1,070,400 km. Jupiter's equatorial planetary radius is 71,492 km. Taking 71,492 as the opposite side and 1,070,400 as the adjacent side gives a tangent of 3.8°. Doubling that to get the diameter rather than the radius gives 7.6°. So your 8° disk is the right order of magnitude.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks!