Nasa probe unveils Jupiter moon's stormy environment
1 May 2018 5:08 PM GMT
Washington DC: New data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft - which spent eight years orbiting Jupiter - has unveiled a stormy exchange of plasma between the giant planet and its moon Ganymede.
NASA's Galileo spacecraft - slightly larger than a full-grown giraffe - sent back spates of discoveries on the gas giant's moons, including the observation of a magnetic environment around Ganymede that was distinct from Jupiter's own magnetic field.
The mission ended in 2003, but newly resurrected data from Galileo's first flyby of Ganymede is yielding new insights about the moon's environment - which is unlike any other in the solar system.
"We are now coming back over 20 years later to take a new look at some of the data that was never published and finish the story. We found there's a whole piece no one knew about," said Glyn Collinson, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in the US. The new results showed a stormy scene: particles blasted off the moon's icy surface as a result of incoming plasma rain, and strong flows of plasma pushed between Jupiter and Ganymede due to an explosive magnetic event occurring between the two bodies' magnetic environments.
Scientists think these observations could be key to unlocking the secrets of the moon, such as why Ganymede's auroras are so bright.
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