Galileo fall upon a point of lightness near Jupiter in 1610 , which he initially thought was a sensation . A few days later he correct himself and named the planet Ganymede , which is not only the big moon around Jupiter , but the big in the entire solar system . Over 400 years afterwards , scientists have finally been capable to complete a geologic map of the entire synodic month . The survey was led by Wes Patterson from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and was publish by theU. S. Geological Survey .
Ganymedeis the third of the Galilean satellites and takes about a hebdomad to rotate around Jupiter . Its diameter is actually larger than the satellite Mercury but it has just one quartern of Mercury ’s mass . Ganymede also has a particular property that no other moon in our solar system has : amagnetosphere . Scientists believe that Ganymede ’s heart is made of molten iron , just like Earth .
Ganymede has been imaged soundly during the Voyager and Galileo commission , effigy which wereintegral to making the geological map . This is the quaternary single-valued function of its kind to be created , which categorize differences of the terrain which shape at different times . Geologic map exist of two of Jupiter ’s other moons , Io and Callisto , as well as Earth ’s moon . The information will be used to help infer how the moon was formed and how it changed over time due to collisions .
Ganymede ’s airfoil is composed mostly of frappe with a mantle of stone surrounding the molten core , but there are incredibly interesting geological features . The darker arena are the old regions of the moon . There is a considerable phone number of craters due to impacts over the course of the solar system ’s account . The loose regions are relatively vernal and are think to have been form by tectonic activity which was influence by a dynamic gravitative relationship with Jupiter ’s other satellite . The gravitative pull likely make tectonic friction , which heat up the frappe enough to crack it and for water to escape out . Once at the surface the water could freeze over again , essentially make meth scars .
scientist have noted that nearly every geologic lineament discovered on an icy moonshine can also be found on Ganymede , pull in this single-valued function an improbably utile tool in understanding how the surface topography formed and evolved .
The full map , which includes several other images and an extensive legend , can be viewed on the website for theU.S. Geological Survey . Image credit : USGS
