It’s long been suspected that Jupiter’s giant moon Ganymede may harbor a subsurface ocean of liquid water beneath its icy yet hard-as-rock crust, and now some ingenious observations with the Hubble Space Telescope are making an even more convincing case for it!
Tag: Ganymede
When a Comet Met Ganymede
Captured by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft on April 5, 1997, this image shows Enki Catena, a 161.3-km (100-mile) long crater chain on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. Named after the Sumerian god of fresh water, Enki Catena is thought to have been formed when a comet approached too close to Jupiter and was torn into 13 pieces, each impacting Ganymede in…
Ganymede Gets a Little Geologic Love
We don’t get to hear a lot about Ganymede these days, what with everyone paying so much attention to Titan and Enceladus and Europa and several other moons out there. Which is too bad because 1. Ganymede is plenty fascinating in its own right; and 2. it’s the LARGEST MOON IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM (and…
A Giant Among Moons
Our solar system’s largest moon, Ganymede. © Ted Stryk. With so much focus these days on Saturn’s many varied moons, I thought I’d post a beautiful image of Jupiter’s lesser-seen – but anything but lesser-sized – moon, Ganymede. The largest of Jupiter’s 63 named moons – as well as the largest moon in our…
A Giant Among Moons
The largest of Jupiter’s 63 known moons and the largest moon in our solar system, Ganymede has twice the mass of our own moon and is even larger than the planet Mercury. Its surface is marked by dark regions which are full of craters and lighter areas lined with ridges. This image was taken by…
