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Scientists use infrared to better explore Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system.
As we celebrate 10 years since NASA Juno mission launched from Earth, the spacecraft delivered stunning images from its orbit around Jupiter, including new infrared views of Ganymede captured during its last flyby of the Jovian moon on July 20.
Using Juno’s Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM), which detects in infrared light that is not visible to the human eye, Juno’s science team has created a new Ganymede infrared map , which she hopes will help them better understand Jupiter’s moon. ice crust and the ocean that lurks beneath it, according to NASA.
“Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury, but just about everything we explore during this mission to Jupiter is on a monumental scale,” said Scott Bolton, senior researcher at Juno, a researcher at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. a NASA statement. “The infrared and other data collected by Juno during the flyby contains fundamental clues to understanding the evolution of Jupiter’s 79 moons from their formation until today.”
In picture : NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter
During Juno’s last meeting with Ganymede, which followed a much closer flyby on June 7, the spacecraft rocked within 31,136 miles (50,109 kilometers) of Ganymede’s surface.
With this close passage, Juno’s JIRAM instrument was able to see the north polar region of Ganymede for the first time. The instrument also collected data on the different low and high altitude material compositions on the alien moon, the statement said.
The data Juno gathered during this flyby is in addition to previous close encounters as well as observations from previous probes like NASA’s Voyager mission as well as spacecraft from the Galileo agency, New Horizons and Cassini. By observing the moon in the infrared, the team was able to learn more about what really constitutes Ganymede to better understand not only this moon, but similar worlds as well.
“We found the high latitudes of Ganymede dominated by water ice, with a fine particle size, which is the result of intense bombardment of charged particles,” said Alessandro Mura, Juno co-investigator of the National Institute of astrophysics of Rome, in the same press release. declaration.
“Conversely, low latitudes are protected by the moon’s magnetic field and contain more of its original chemical composition, including constituents other than water ice such as salts and organic matter. “, added Mura. “It is extremely important to characterize the unique properties of these frozen regions to better understand the spatial weathering processes undergone by the surface.”
As Juno continues to explore the entire Jovian system, NASA has extended the mission until September 2025 so the probe can explore Jupiter’s moons and rings – other upcoming space missions may have their own view of the big moon. For example, the European Space Agency Jupiter’s Frozen Moons Explorer The mission (JUICE) slated to launch next year will study Jupiter’s four largest moons, known as the Galilean moons.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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