More than 400 years after its discovery by astronomer Galileo Galilei, the largest moon in the solar system – Jupiter’s moon Ganymede – has finally claimed a spot on the map.
A group of scientists led by Geoffrey Collins of Wheaton College has produced the first global geologic map of Ganymede, Jupiter’s seventh moon. The map combines the best images … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has observed water vapor above the frigid south polar region of Jupiter’s moon Europa, providing the first strong evidence of water plumes erupting off the moon’s surface.
Previous scientific findings from other sources already point to the existence of an ocean located under Europa’s icy crust. Researchers are not yet certain whether the detected water vapor … Read the rest of this article
By analyzing the distinctive cracks lining the icy face of Europa, NASA scientists found evidence that this moon of Jupiter likely spun around a tilted axis at some point.
Europa’s tilt could influence calculations of how much of the moon’s history is recorded in its frozen shell, how much heat is generated by tides in its ocean, and even how … Read the rest of this article
Most of what scientists know of Jupiter’s moon Europa they have gleaned from a dozen or so close flybys from NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979 and NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the mid-to-late 1990s. Even in these fleeting, paparazzi-like encounters, scientists have seen a fractured, ice-covered world with tantalizing signs of a liquid water ocean under its surface. Such an … Read the rest of this article
The surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa exposes material churned up from inside the moon and also material resulting from matter and energy coming from above. If you want to learn about the deep saltwater ocean beneath this unusual world’s icy shell — as many people do who are interested in possible extraterrestrial life — you might target your investigation of … Read the rest of this article
The hundreds of volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io aren’t where they’re supposed to be, scientists say.
Io’s major volcanic activity is concentrated 30 to 60 degrees farther east than models of its internal heat profile predict, a recent study reports, suggesting that the exotic, volcanic Jupiter moon Io is even more mysterious than researchers had previously thought.
“The unexpected eastward … Read the rest of this article
A new paper led by a NASA researcher shows that hydrogen peroxide is abundant across much of the surface of Jupiter‘s moon Europa. The authors argue that if the peroxide on the surface of Europa mixes into the ocean below, it could be an important energy supply for simple forms of life, if life were to exist there. The … Read the rest of this article
The JUpiter ICy moons Explorer mission, JUICE, will carry a total of 11 scientific experiments to study the gas giant planet and its large ocean-bearing moons, ESA announced today.
Artist impression of JUICE, the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer mission, in the Jovian system. Image credit: ESA/AOES
JUICE is the first Large-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 programme. Planned for … Read the rest of this article
This is a great time to be observing the planet Jupiter. It’s nearing opposition; it big and bright in the late-night/early-morning sky and that can only mean that lots of astronomers are pointing telescopes and cameras at it.
And that scrutiny aid off yesterday morning (about 6:35 am Texas time – 11:35 UT – on Sept. 10, 2012) when two … Read the rest of this article
Jupiter’s icy moons are the focus of Europe’s next large science mission, ESA announced today.
The Jupiter Icy moons Explorer – JUICE – was selected over two other candidates: NGO, the New Gravitational wave Observatory, to hunt for gravitational waves, and ATHENA, the Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics.
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
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