A timelapse of Jupiter ’s Moon Europa and Io orbiting the gas giant has been viewed wide on Reddit over the last few days , largely because of how unembellished awesome it is ( in the true signified of the Logos , not the " well that was an awesome sandwich " way that the word has been used in recent year ) .

The timelapse is so salutary , in fact , thatmany commentershave paint a picture it ca n’t be real .

While it ’s good to be disbelieving about images shared online — peculiarly whenfake imagesgetcirculated online as tangible for clicks — we are happy to confirm that the gorgeous short video is 100 percent legit .

Like so many other gorgeous views of the planets , the timelapse was made byKevin M.Gill , a   NASA - JPL engineer and expert processor of world-wide images . He used images withdraw by theCassini space probeon a flyby of Jupiter in 2001 ( in decree to profit a gravitative assist , while also image the gas giant and making other observations ) before it headed on to Saturn .

The telecasting shows Io and Europa orbiting their major planet . One of the reason people have been sceptical of the clip is that Io , which is closer to Jupiter , seem to be revolve slower than Europa , which is further away . However , there ’s a uncomplicated explanation for this .

" The motion is n’t all accurate as I made it to look pretty than it was right , " Gill explain on Twitter . " It ’s meant to portray the gesture visible from a space vehicle that ’s moving at a speed quicker than the moons are orbiting . So , from a stationary perspective , Io would move faster than Europa . "

Europa looks to be orbiting quicker than Io because you are seeing it from the point of view of a spacecraft , such as Cassini , that is moving to the left hand . Since Europa is closer , it looks like moving quicker . This is a common illusion : things look to move slower when they are further away because they seem to be smaller and so take longer to cut across our visual sensation .

Think of when you are on a highway , and bet over at the cars go in the polar direction . Behind the cars you see an plane , also give-up the ghost in the same steering as the vehicles . From your view , the cars look like they are going quicker than the aircraft , but I assure you , they are not .