Latest Ganymede Stories
It's dangerous to remain too long inside the radiation belts of Jupiter. The high-energy particles can damage space probes, and they also can destroy biological molecules or other signatures of life that might exist on inner moons like Europa. A new study plans to determine just how hazardous an impact the radiation belts have on the Jovian system."Our goal is to find some areas that might be interesting for a future mission to explore," says Wes Patterson of Johns Hopkins...
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, playing a game of "peek-a-boo." In this crisp Hubble image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant planet.Ganymede completes an orbit around Jupiter every seven days. Because Ganymede's orbit is tilted nearly edge-on to Earth, it routinely can be seen passing in front of and disappearing behind its giant host, only to reemerge later.Composed of rock and ice, Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system. It...
Yogi Berra supposedly suggested that when you come to a fork in the road, you are supposed to take it. That's just what planetary scientists studying the rich data set from the Galileo Mission to the outer solar system are doing now. They're taking the fork. According to William B. McKinnon, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, the community suffers from an embarrassment of riches, because each of the moons of Jupiter...
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Everyday ice used to chill that glass of lemonade has helped researchers better understand the internal structure of icy moons in the far reaches of the solar system. A research team has demonstrated a new kind of "creep" or flow in a high-pressure form of ice by creating in a laboratory the conditions of pressure, temperature, stress, and grain size that mimic those in the deep interiors of large icy moons. High-pressure phases of ice are major components of...
Jupiter's moon Europa is thought to be one of the most likely abodes for microscopic life in our solar system. The discovery that Europa most likely has a cold, salty ocean beneath its frozen icy crust has put Europa on the short list of objects in our solar system that astrobiologists would like to study further.Astrobiology Magazine -- The discovery that Jupiter's moon Europa most likely has a cold, salty ocean beneath its frozen icy crust has put Europa on the short list of objects in our...
Astrobiology Magazine -- Jonathan Lunine, a professor of planetary science and physics at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, is also an interdisciplinary scientist on the Cassini/Huygens mission. Lunine presented a lecture entitled "Titan: A Personal View after Cassini's first six months in Saturn orbit" at a NASA Director's Seminar on January 24, 2005. This edited transcript of the Director's Seminar is Part 3 of a 4-part...
Latest Ganymede Reference Libraries
Aquila (the Eagle) Constellation -- Location: Northern Hemisphere; Coordinates: Right Ascension: 20h; Declination: 05; Source: Various cultures - Greek, Arab, Persian, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean The story behind the name In the ancient Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, the constellation Aquila is seen as the shape of a flying bird. The pattern contains three prominent stars that can be seen to outline the wings of a bird, but are also the focus of quite different myths...
Jupiter's Moon Callisto -- With a diameter of over 4,800 km (2,985 miles), Callisto is the third largest satellite in the solar system and is almost the size of Mercury. Callisto is the outermost of the Galilean satellites, and orbits beyonds Jupiter's main radiation belts. It has the lowest density of the Galilean satellites (1.86 grams/cubic centimeter). Its interior is probably similar to Ganymede except the inner rocky core is smaller, and this core is surrounded by a large icy...
Jupiter's Moon Ganymede -- Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system with a diameter of 5,268 km (3270 miles). It is larger than Mercury and Pluto, and three-quarters the size of Mars. If Ganymede orbited the Sun instead of orbiting Jupiter, it would easily be classified as a planet. If Ganymede orbited the Sun instead of Jupiter it could be classified as a planet. Like Callisto, Ganymede is most likely composed of a rocky core with a water/ice mantle and a crust of rock and...
Jupiter's Moon Europa -- Europa is a puzzle. The sixth largest moon in our Solar System, Europa confounds and intrigues scientists. Few bodies in the Solar System have attracted as much scientific attention as this moon of Jupiter because of its possible subsurface ocean of water. The more we learn about this icy moon, the more questions we have. Because the nature of science is to ask questions, we cannot resist the mystery of Europa and its potential for possessing an ocean. Early...
Jupiter's Moon Io -- Looking like a giant pizza covered with melted cheese and splotches of tomato and ripe olives, Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Volcanic plumes rise 300 kilometers (190 miles) above the surface, with material spewing out at nearly half the required escape velocity. A bit larger than Earth's moon, Io is the third largest of Jupiter's moons, and the fifth one in distance from the planet. Although Io always points the same side toward...
