First map of Jupiter's giant Moon Ganymede unveiled

Well, scientists have finally done it! They've finally made a map of Ganymede only 404 years after its discovery by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Whoo-hoo!

"This map illustrates the incredible variety of geological features on Ganymede and helps to make order from the apparent chaos of its complex surface," Robert Pappalardo, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "This map is helping planetary scientists to decipher the evolution of this icy world and will aid in upcoming spacecraft observations."

Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury! It was probably a planet captured by Jupiter's mag field in its early formation. It has ice covering its surface and scientists think that bodies like this such as Europa, Titan, and Encelladus are the best places to find life outside of Earth and Mars. There are some upcoming NASA missions that will go to Ganymede, me thinks. We're getting close to finding life elsewhere in the solar system!

What say you, ATS?

www.space.com...

reply to post by lostbook


It is certainly an interesting place. It has a magnetosphere, and probably a molten core, almost like a frozen Earth, or an Earth in waiting.
All the space programmers need to do is give it a tow nearer to the Sun, and it's big, as big as our Moon, but it's not officially a planet while it's a satellite of Jupiter, hey! maybe it was a planet at one time until that big gasbag Jupiter came *around.

Just to add, the Juno satellite will be around Jupiter in 2016 if all goes well, it's going to do some vital statistics of Jupiter, like water and gravity, and believe it or not it has a camera!

*I'm not sure if it is clear whether Jupiter was around at an early stage to act as the 'Fat Controller' but if you want to speculate on the dodgy science of the second Sun feel free, since Juno is going to end up the same as Galileo...one small fart for man, one giant leap away from your ass

reply to post by smurfy


Yes and yes....

lostbook
Well, scientists have finally done it! They've finally made a map of Ganymede only 404 years after its discovery by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Whoo-hoo!

"This map illustrates the incredible variety of geological features on Ganymede and helps to make order from the apparent chaos of its complex surface," Robert Pappalardo, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "This map is helping planetary scientists to decipher the evolution of this icy world and will aid in upcoming spacecraft observations."

Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury! It was probably a planet captured by Jupiter's mag field in its early formation.

I think you mean gravitational field.


[quote[
It has ice covering its surface and scientists think that bodies like this such as Europa, Titan, and Encelladus are the best places to find life outside of Earth and Mars. There are some upcoming NASA missions that will go to Ganymede, me thinks. We're getting close to finding life elsewhere in the solar system!

What say you, ATS?

www.space.com...

Excellent work as a precursor for JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer).

JadeStar

Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury! It was probably a planet captured by Jupiter's mag field in its early formation.

I think you mean gravitational field.

Excellent work as a precursor for JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer).

Lostbook
Thank you for being patient with me, Jade. Yes, I said Magnetic field but I meant Gravity field. The JUICE mission sounds exciting. Can't wait for that one.

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reply to post by lostbook


Thank you for being patient with me, Jade. Yes, I meant Gravity field not magnetic field. The JUICE mission sounds pretty cool.

J PL Link

This looks like the best place for the map. Links to the high res stuff.

I hereby from now on claim my ownership of Ganymede for all foreseeable future exploration and shall forever be inherited to my descendants.
You may land, but cannot bring anything initially there out from its orbit, that is all.

lostbook
Well, scientists have finally done it! They've finally made a map of Ganymede only 404 years after its discovery by Galileo Galilei in 1610.

And only 35 years after the Voyagers, and approx 19 years after Galileo mission, which took the data used to make this map. What took scientists so long, I wonder. [conspiracy hat on] Did they find some alien base that they had to carefully edit out?

Aw i was hoping for some pics on the thread, but we gotta go download stuff? I guess I'll have to wait until someone finds an alien base on ganymede and makes a thread before I see some decent pics. I don't know if my phone has enough memory to store an entire moon on it. Plus it's just easier if someone else does it. And better since I probably won't even be able to locate the 8 thousand gigabyte file on my phone once I've downloaded it... and that will probably annoy me because I'll know it's there, I'll feel it slowing my phone down since, knowing my phone, it will definitely be running in the background at all times, but I'll never be able to actually figure out how to look at it. And when i get annoyed i make posts like this. So i think we can all agree it's best for everyone if someone else just spoon feeds me the images, or a selection of images if there are too many, right here at ATS.

I did click a link on this thread but all i saw was one little image, not a map at all. It didn't even show both sides of the moon. Just one. This one sided image cannot be their legendary map everyone's raving about...All 4 of us raving maniacs on this thread that is. That pic is no map. I could just as easily say that the very first picture of ganymede is the very first map and this is the first NOTHING! Just another image in a series of images.

reply to post by JadeStar


First I've heard of the JUICE mission, thanks. It should start to gather its main data in 2033. Here is a Wikipedia page on it:
en.wikipedia.org...