The night sky around Jupiter is painted with two colorful moons in this view taken by NASA’s New Horizons probe.

Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io takes center stage in this image with its three visible plumes of material erupting from its surface. The most conspicuous plume stems from Io’s Tvashtar volcano, which spews material 190 miles (300 kilometers) above the moon’s surface and can be seen in the 11 o’clock position.

Two other plumes, the Prometheus volcano in the 9 o’clock position and Amirani -- between Prometheus and Tvashtar -- are also discernable. In this view, Io’s night side is being illuminated by reflected light bouncing off of Jupiter, which lies out of frame.

Europa’s night side faces away from Jupiter, and appears completely dark in the crescent at the right.

Taken by New Horizons’ Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera, this view was recorded on March 2, 2007 just after the probe made its closes swing past the gas giant Jupiter. It is one of a handful of images taken primarily for its artistic value and was suggested by space enthusiast Richard Hendricks of Austin, Texas during a call for possible snapshot opportunities by the New Horizons mission team.

The New Horizons probe caught this view of the two Jovian moons while flying at a distance of about 2.8 million miles (4.6 million kilometers) from Io and 2.4 million miles (3.8 million kilometers) from Europa. The two moons, while appearing close, are actually separated by a cosmic gulf of about 490,00 miles (790,000 kilometers).

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-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.