Jamie Carter is an award-winning reporter and experienced stargazer who covers the night sky, astro-tourism, the northern lights and space exploration. He received the 2023 Popular Media Award from the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division and is the author of A Stargazing Program for Beginners. Writing for Forbes.
Juno spacecraft during the mission's June 7, 2021, flyby of the icy moon on Juno 's 34th pass close to Jupiter . Ganymede , the biggest moon in the solar system , was hit by an asteroid 20 times larger than the one that ended the age of the dinosaurs on Earth, according to new research.
The impact, reckoned to have taken place about four billion years ago, was so huge that the giant moon's axis shifted—and the telltale signs are still there.Bigger than Mercury and only slightly smaller than Mars, Ganymede Ganymede has a diameter of 3,273 miles/5,268 kilometers. It’s the largest moon and the ninth-largest object in the solar system after the eight planets. It's also the only moon planetary scientists know of with both an atmosphere and a magnetic field.
It's also the only one of Jupiter's four large Galilean moons whose surface is dominated by furrows that form concentric circles around one specific spot.that Ganymede’s pock-marked, grooved and patterned surface may have been caused by an asteroid up to 90 miles/150 kilometers wide. That's now being revised up.Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is almost precisely on the meridian farthest away from Jupiter.
“The Jupiter moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto all have interesting individual characteristics, but the one that caught my attention was these furrows on Ganymede,”today in Scientific Reports. “We know that this feature was created by an asteroid impact about four billion years ago, but we were unsure how big this impact was and what effect it had on the moon.
Jupiter Juno Solar System Asteroid Dinosuars Chicxulub
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