NASA’sJuno probehas just deliver the closest images of Jupiter ’s icy Sun Myung Moon Ganymede that we have escort in decade , offering up some incredible glimpses of its surface .
Ganymede is the biggest moon in the Solar System ( even larger than Mercury ) and the only one with its own magnetic subject field . It has an iron - fat core and an intimate ocean with maybe more piss than all the ocean on Earth . It ’s unquestionably a world worth studying .
Juno ’s master commission is topeer insideJupiter , and it has provided us with somespectacular imagesof the gas colossus , but during its flybys , it has also count at itsmany Sun Myung Moon . On June 7 , Juno fly over Ganymede snapping several portrayal . The first one here taken by JunoCam show the wintry surface from a single green filter reveal Crater and maybe even tectonic feature . The image firmness of purpose is about 1 kilometer ( 0.6 statute mile ) per pixel .
JunoCam captured almost the entire side of the water - ice encrusted moon . “ This is the closest any spacecraft has total to this mammoth moon in a genesis , ” Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton said in astatement . “ We are going to take our time before we draw any scientific decision , but until then we can just marvel at this celestial curiosity . ”
Color images will also soon be created from the information by NASA experts using red and blue filter , which will allow for a color portrait of the moon .
Juno also delivered a very cool sight of the nighttime side of the moon where the light bounce off Jupiter was enough to illuminate Ganymede for Juno ’s Stellar Reference Unit , which is a navigation camera .
The " gloomy side " of Ganymede get by Juno ’s Stellar Reference Unit navigation camera during its June 7 , 2021 , flyby of the moon . Image course credit : NASA / JPL - Caltech / SwRI
“ The conditions in which we gather up the dark side image of Ganymede were ideal for a low - light photographic camera like our Stellar Reference Unit , ” allege Heidi Becker , Juno ’s radiation therapy monitoring trail . “ So this is a unlike part of the control surface than see by JunoCam in unmediated sun . It will be fun to see what the two team can piece together . ”
Juno will be direct back more images of its flyby in the next few days , which are availablehere as raw images , so it ’s just a matter of time for image experts to polish up these impression and we should get some more spectacular views of Ganymede .
