NASA once again broke new ground. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has been spotted for the first time. Jupiter’s moon is indeed worth seeing.
NASA’s deep space probe Juno has brought us the first close-up images of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, in two decades. Images taken during Juno’s flyby of the giant moon on June 7 were captured by the spacecraft’s JunoCam visible light imager using a green filter. The Star Reference Unit star navigation camera took a black and white image of the dark side of the Ganymede satellite. This image was illuminated by light reflected from Jupiter.
Ganymede spotted for the first time
The images released by NASA made history as the first images returned by Juno from the gravity-assisted flyby of Ganymede, which is larger than the planet Mercury as the largest moon in the solar system. Published images have a resolution of approximately 0.6 miles (1 km) per pixel for the JunoCam and 0.37 miles (600 km) per pixel for the navigation camera.
The images also reveal a number of features in Ganymede’s crust, such as light and dark regions, craters and tectonic faults in the ice.
The images from the satellite are still in the process of processing. Since these images will take a long time to process, we will be able to access clearer images in the coming days.
This discovery is expected to shed light on Ganymede’s composition, ionosphere, magnetosphere, radiation environment, and ice crust by aiding future missions. Other images to be released soon will be made using red and blue filters, which allow processing of full-color images.
“This is the closest any spacecraft has come to this massive moon in a generation,” said Scott Bolton, Juno Principal Investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. We will take our time before drawing any scientific conclusions, but until then we can marvel at this celestial miracle.” used the phrases.
