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This perspective view, simulating a low altitude flight over the surface of Ganymede, was made possible by topographic analysis of stereo images of the Sippar Sulcus region. Such a view was made possible when Galileo passed Ganymede in May 1997, providing a virtual second "eye" to Voyager's first view in 1979.
This image, taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, shows a same-scale comparison between Arbela Sulcus on Jupiter's moon Ganymede (left) and an unnamed band on another Jovian moon, Europa (right). Arbela Sulcus is one of the smoothest lanes of bright terrain identified on Ganymede, and shows very subtle striations along its length. Arbela contrasts markedly from the surrounding heavily cratered dark terrain.
On Europa, dark bands have formed by tectonic crustal spreading and renewal. Bands have sliced through and completely separated pre-existing features in the surrounding bright ridged plains. The scarcity of craters on Europa illustrates the relative youth of its surface compared to Ganymede's.
Unusual for Ganymede, it is possible that Arbela Sulcus has formed by complete separation of Ganymede's icy crust, like bands on Europa. Prominent fractures on either side of Arbela appear to have been offset by about 65 kilometers (about 40 miles) along the length of the area of furrows and ridges, suggesting that strike-slip faulting was important in the formation of Arbela Sulcus.
In the Ganymede image, north is to the upper left of the picture and the Sun illuminates the surface from the west. The image, centered at -14degrees latitude and 347 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 258 by 116 kilometers (160 by 72 miles.) The resolution is 133 meters(436 feet) per picture element. The images were taken on May 20, 2000, at a range of 13,100 kilometers (8,100 miles).
In the Europa image, north is to the left of the picture and the Sun illuminates the surface from the east. The image, centered at -7 degrees latitude and 236 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 275 by 424 kilometers (171 by 263 miles.) The resolution is 220 meters (about 720 feet) per picture element (re-sampled here to 133 meters, or 436 feet). The images were taken on Nov. 6, 1997, at a range of 21,500 kilometers (13,360 miles).
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/gallery/index.cfm.
Images were produced by Brown University, Providence, R.I., http://www.planetary.brown.edu/, DLR (German Aerospace Center) Berlin, http://www.dlr.de/pf/, and University of Arizona, Tempe, http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/.
Voir l'image PIA02575: Comparison of Ganymede and Europa features sur le site de la NASA.
Embayment of ridges and troughs in a portion of the Sippar Sulcus area of Jupiter's moon Ganymede in this image from NASA's Galileo spacecraft is interpreted as evidence that the low-lying area was filled in by flooding with low-viscosity material, such as water or water-ice slush lavas. Bays of the material appeared to have formed in troughs (indicated by arrows) between the ridges.
The smallest features visible are about 180 meters (590 feet) across. Analysis of such high-resolution images in combination with estimates of the features' relative elevations is helping scientists interpret the roles of volcanism and tectonics in creating the bright terrain on Ganymede.
This image was prepared by the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, and included in a report by Dr. Paul Schenk et al. in the March 1, 2001, edition of the journal Nature.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo/.
Voir l'image PIA03216: Ridges and Troughs in Sippar Sulcus, Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web Galileo mission home page at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http:// www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA00580: Ganymede Galileo Regio High Resolution Mosaic Shown in Context sur le site de la NASA.
The area of Nicholson Regio and Arbela Sulcus illustrates many of the diverse terrain types on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, as seen in this image taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The bright terrain of Arbela Sulcus is the youngest terrain here, slicing north-south across the image. It is finely striated, and relatively lightly cratered. To the east (right) is the oldest terrain in this area, rolling and relatively densely cratered Nicholson Regio. To the west (left) is a region of highly deformed grooved terrain, intermediate in relative age. In this area of grooved terrain, stretching and normal faulting of Nicholson Regio has deformed it beyond recognition.
North is to the top of the picture and the Sun illuminates the surface from the west. The image, centered at -15 degrees latitude and 347degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 89 by 26 kilometers (55by 16 miles). The resolution is 34 meters (112 feet) per picture element. The images were taken on May 20, 2000, at a range of 3,350 kilometers (2,082 miles).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
This image was produced by DLR (German Aerospace Center), Berlin, and Brown University, Providence, R.I., http://solarsystem.dlr.de/ andhttp://www.planetary.brown.edu/.
Scientists believe that water-ice frosts are the likely cause for the brightening seen around the circular rims of these craters located at a high northern latitude (57 degrees) on Jupiter's moon Ganymede in this image taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft on September 6, 1996. The image, just recently radioed to Earth from the spacecraft, shows the same kind of bright, high-latitude surface areas as those first seen by the Voyager spacecraft in 1979, but at higher resolution (this image spans about 18 kilometers or 11 miles on a side). Even though the Sun is shining from the south, the north-facing walls of the ridges and craters are brighter than the walls facing the Sun. This is interpreted to mean that the very bright north-facing slopes are covered with surface water-ice frosts, and that these frosts preferentially accumulate in such high-latitude locations. Galileo scientists say that at the high resolution seen in Galileo images, the high-latitude brightness seen by Voyager is partly attributable to frosts forming on cooler, north-facing slopes.
The right-hand side of the image is dominated by a north-south line of impact craters; the smallest ones at the top are about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) in diameter and the large one at the bottom is about 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) in diameter. Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system, larger than the planet Mercury and nearly the size of Mars.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page on the World Wide Web at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA00496: Ice-frosted crater tops on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
In this global view of Ganymede's trailing side, the colors are enhanced to emphasize color differences. The enhancement reveals frosty polar caps in addition to the two predominant terrains on Ganymede, bright, grooved terrain and older, dark furrowed areas. Many craters with diameters up to several dozen kilometers are visible. The violet hues at the poles may be the result of small particles of frost which would scatter more light at shorter wavelengths (the violet end of the spectrum). Ganymede's magnetic field, which was detected by the magnetometer on NASA's Galileo spacecraft in 1996, may be partly responsible for the appearance of the polar terrain. Compared to Earth's polar caps, Ganymede's polar terrain is relatively vast. The frost on Ganymede reaches latitudes as low as 40 degrees on average and 25 degrees at some locations. For comparison with Earth, Miami, Florida lies at 26 degrees north latitude, and Berlin, Germany is located at 52 degrees north.
North is to the top of the picture. The composite, which combines images taken with green, violet, and 1 micrometer filters, is centered at 306 degrees west longitude. The resolution is 9 kilometers (6 miles) per picture element. The images were taken on 29 March 1998 at a range of 918000 kilometers (570,000 miles) by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URLhttp://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at URLhttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.">http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
The Galileo image of Uruk Sulcus has a resolution of about 74 meters per pixel. The area shown is about 35 by 55 kilometers (25 by 34 miles). North is to the top, and the sun illuminates the surface from the lower left. The image taken by the Solid State Imaging (CCD) system reveals details of the structure and shape of the ridges which permit scientists to determine their origin and their relation to other terrains. These new views are helping to unravel the complex history of this planet-sized moon.
The left SF Bay area image is from an image obtained by an Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer aboard an NOAA satellite. The right SF Bay area image is from a LandSat Thematic Mapper. Golden Gate Park is clearly visible as a narrow dark rectangle towards the middle of this image. Both images were trimmed and adjusted to resolutions similar to the Ganymede images.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA00722: Galileo Resolutions: Ganymede and the San Francisco Bay Area sur le site de la NASA.
NASA's Galileo imaging camera targeted an area in Sippar Sulcus on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. Images obtained in 1979 by NASA's Voyager spacecraft showed that the area contained curvilinear and arcuate scarps or cliffs. These features appeared to be depressions which were candidate sources for some of the water ice volcanism thought to form the bright grooved terrain on Ganymede. The high resolution Galileo images seen here reveal that one of these structures contains a lobate, flow-like feature that is the best candidate yet seen for an icy volcanic lava flow on Ganymede. The prominent depression with scalloped walls and internal terraces is about 55 kilometers (km) in length and 17 to 20 km wide. On the floor of the inner depression is a lobate flow-like deposit 7 to 10 km wide with ridges that are curved outward (and apparently downslope) toward a cross-cutting lane of grooved terrain. The morphology of this structure suggests the possibility of volcanic eruptions creating a channel and flow, and cutting down into the surface.
North is to the bottom of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the left. The mosaic, centered at 31 degrees south latitude and 189 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 91 by 62 kilometers. The resolution is 172 meters per picture element. The images were taken on May 7, 1997 at 15 hours, 18 minutes, 35 seconds Universal Time at a range of 17,489 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01614: "Calderas" on Ganymede? sur le site de la NASA.
Another large crater named El is partly visible in the top-right corner of the image. This crater is 54 kilometers (34 miles) in diameter and has a small "pit" in its center. Craters with such a "central pit" are common across Ganymede and are especially intriguing since they may reveal secrets about the structure of the satellite's shallow subsurface.
North is to the top-left of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from nearly overhead. The image covers an area about 100 kilometers (62 miles) by 86 kilometers (54 miles) across at a resolution of 111 meters (370 feet) per picture element. The image was taken on September 6, 1996 by the solid state imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov.
Voir l'image PIA01090: Khensu Crater on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
View of Nicholson Regio on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, showing heavily fractured dark terrain and a lane of smooth bright terrain. North is to the top of the picture. A smooth, linear plank-like strip of bright terrain cuts across the southeast (lower right) corner of the image. Just west (left) of this is a very heavily fractured lane of dark terrain, curving towards the south. This fractured lane looks bright in lower resolution Voyager images and may be transitional between the older, heavily fractured dark terrain, and younger, less densely cratered bright terrain. The many other fractures visible within the dark terrain probably result from extension in the area. Some of these fractures were focused around weaknesses created by older craters (such as the one just east of the image center).
The sun illuminates the surface from the right. The image, centered at 14 degrees south latitude and 352 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 144 by 144 kilometers. The resolution is 180 meters per picture element. The image was taken on April 5, 1997 at 6 hours, 31 minutes, 35 seconds Universal Time at a range of 17,842 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01613: Fractures in Nicholson Regio sur le site de la NASA.
This is New Horizons' best image of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, taken with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera at 10:01 Universal Time on February 27 from a range of 3.5 million kilometers (2.2 million miles). The longitude of the disk center is 38 degrees West and the image scale is 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. Dark patches of ancient terrain are broken up by swaths of brighter, younger material, and the entire icy surface is peppered by more recent impact craters that have splashed fresh, bright ice across the surface.
With a diameter of 5,268 kilometers (3.273 miles), Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system.
This is one of a handful of Jupiter system images already returned by New Horizons during its close approach to Jupiter. Most of the data being gathered by the spacecraft are stored onboard and will be downlinked to Earth during March and April 2007.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA01057: A Polar Crater on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The image, centered at 51 degrees latitude and 204 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 79 kilometers (50 miles) by 57 kilometers (36 miles) across. The resolution is 93 meters (330 feet) per picture element. The images were taken on September 6, 1996 at a range of 9,971 kilometers (6,232 miles) by the solid state imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov.
Voir l'image PIA01086: Grooved Terrain in Nippur Sulcus on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The shallow, scalloped depression in the center of this picture from NASA's Galileo spacecraft is a caldera-like feature 5 to 20 kilometers (3 to 12 miles) wide on Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede.
Calderas are surface depressions formed by collapse above a subsurface concentration of molten material. Some shallow depressions in bright, smooth areas of Ganymede have some overall similarities to calderas on Earth and on Jupiter's moon Io.
On Ganymede, caldera-like depressions may serve as sources of bright, volcanic flows of liquid water and slush, an idea supported by a Ganymede photo obtained by Galileo during its seventh orbit and available at PIA01614. In the more recent image here, from Galileo's 28th orbit, a tall scarp marks the western boundary of a caldera-like feature. The western scarp is aligned similarly to older tectonic grooves visible in the image, suggesting the feature has collapsed along older lines of weakness. The interior is mottled in appearance, yet smooth compared to most of Ganymede's bright terrain seen at high resolution. The eastern boundary of the caldera-like feature is cut by younger, grooved terrain. Small impact craters pepper the scene, but the lack of a raised rim argues against an impact origin for the caldera-like feature itself. Instead, water-rich icy lava may have once flowed out of it toward the east. If so, later tectonism could have erased any telltale evidence of volcanic flow fronts. Direct evidence for icy volcanism on Ganymede continues to be elusive.
North is to the top of the picture and the Sun illuminates the surface from the left. The image, centered at -24 degrees latitude and 318 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 162 by 119 kilometers (101 by 74 miles). The resolution is 43 meters (141 feet) per picture element.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
This image was produced by Brown University, Providence, R.I.,http://www.planetary.brown.edu/.
Voir l'image PIA02580: Caldera-like depression on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA01059: Grooves and Craters on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The picture covers an area about 48 kilometers (30 miles) by 34 kilometers (21 miles) across at a resolution of 86 meters (287 feet) per picture element. The image was taken on September 6, 1996 by the solid state imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov.
Voir l'image PIA01088: Nergal Crater on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA01062: Fractures in Transitional Terrain on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
North is to the top-left of the image, and the sun illuminates the surface from the southeast. The image covers an area about 63 kilometers (39 miles) by 120 kilometers (75 miles) across at a resolution of 188 meters (627 feet) per picture element. The images were taken on September 6, 1996 at a range of 18,522 kilometers (11,576 miles) by the solid state imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov.
Voir l'image PIA01091: Complex Tectonism on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The solar system's largest moon, Ganymede, is captured here alongside the planet Jupiter in a color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 3, 2000.
Ganymede is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Both Ganymede and Titan have greater surface area than the entire Eurasian continent on our planet. Cassini was 26.5 million kilometers (16.5 million miles) from Ganymede when this image was taken. The smallest visible features are about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) across.
The bright area near the south (bottom) of Ganymede is Osiris, a large, relatively new crater surrounded by bright icy material ejected by the impact, which created it. Elsewhere, Ganymede displays dark terrains that NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft have shown to be old and heavily cratered. The brighter terrains are younger and laced by grooves. Various kinds of grooved terrains have been seen on many icy moons in the solar system. These are believed to be the surface expressions of warm, pristine, water-rich materials that moved to the surface and froze.
Ganymede has proven to be a fascinating world, the only moon known to have a magnetosphere, or magnetic environment, produced by a convecting metal core. The interaction of Ganymede's and Jupiter's magnetospheres may produce dazzling variations in the auroral glows in Ganymede's tenuous atmosphere of oxygen.
Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Voir l'image PIA02862: Ganymede and Jupiter sur le site de la NASA.
Dark terrain of Nicholson Regio on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. On the left is a crater that has been torn apart by tectonic forces. A lane of ridges and grooves (probably extensional fault blocks) cuts through the crater and distorts its originally circular shape. Though such deformation is more typical of Ganymede's bright grooved terrain, this image demonstrates that extreme tectonic disruption has occurred in the satellite's dark terrain also. The pair of oblong craters on the right was formed by the impact of a gravitationally bound pair of asteroids or a split comet. The oblong shapes of the craters suggest that the impactors struck the surface at a shallow angle. Toward the top left, an old crater has been partially buried by dark ejecta tossed from another impact about 50 kilometers to the north of this image.
North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the right. The image, centered at 14 degrees south latitude and 352 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 111 by 93 kilometers. The resolution is 180 meters per picture element. The image was taken on April 5, 1997 at 6 hours, 31 minutes, 44 seconds Universal Time at a range of 17,840 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01612: A Tumultuous Past for Ganymede's Dark Terrain sur le site de la NASA.
A swath of grooved terrain named Erech Sulcus cuts north-south across the ancient dark terrain of Marius Regio. The multiple scales of ubiquitous grooves in Erech Sulcus probably formed when tectonic forces pulled apart the icy surface of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. Similar sets of faults occur in rift zones on Earth, as in eastern Africa. The southern edge of Erech Sulcus is truncated by the smoother bright terrain of Sippar Sulcus, trending roughly east-west. The relatively smooth appearance of Sippar Sulcus hints that icy volcanism once paved over the area.
North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the right. The mosaic, centered at 16 degrees south latitude and 177 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 950 by 560 kilometers. The resolution is 143 meters per picture element. The images were taken on May 7, 1997 at 15 hours, 24 minutes, 39 seconds Universal Time at a range of 14,263 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01615: Swaths of Grooved Terrain on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
New terrain overlays older terrain, which overlays still older surface, in this view of part of the surface of Jupiter's moon Ganymede, taken by the camera onboard NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Galileo obtained the images that make up this mosaic when it flew past Jupiter's moon Ganymede for the second time on September 6, 1996. An area about 54 kilometers (33 miles) wide and 90 kilometers (55 miles) high is shown. Northern Marius Regio (the dark terrain at bottom), Philus Sulcus (bright terrain at center), and Nippur Sulcus (bright terrain at top) are seen illuminated by the Sun from the southeast (north is at the top).
The key characteristics and relationships of the major terrain types on tectonically active Ganymede are seen at a resolution 16 times better than images taken by the Voyager spacecraft in 1979. At the bottom, the ancient dark terrain is seen to be very deformed by tectonic fractures and faults. An impact crater about 18 kilometers (about 11 miles) in diameter has been highly modified by faulting. More recent cross-cutting fractures and faults at center illustrate to scientists the sequence of events that have created the younger bright terrain. The lines in the middle left of the image are faults that are cross-cut by younger faults in the upper part of the image. The smooth band in the upper middle of the image may represent water-ice volcanic deposits flooding a fault valley. Clusters of small craters, representing ejecta transported from distant craters and re-impacting here, are seen in the middle of the photo. The images that make up this mosaic were taken at a range of about 11,620 kilometers (about 7,200 miles).
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page on the World Wide Web at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA00497: Ganymede's Nippur Sulcus sur le site de la NASA.
This image shows a Galileo high-resolution mosaic of craters Gula (top), about 40 km (25 miles) in diameter, and Achelous (bottom), about 35 km (21.8 miles) in diameter, projected on a lower-resolution background of image data that were obtained in the late 70s by the NASA Voyager spacecraft.
The two Galileo frames used for the mosaic of Gula and Achelous were taken under low sun elevation in April 1997 during Galileo's 7th orbit around Jupiter with the Solid State Imaging (SSI) camera system onboard this NASA spacecraft that has been orbiting Jupiter since December 1995. The images were taken from a distance of about 17,500 km from Ganymede. The pixel resolution is about 180 m/pixel - the smallest features that are still discernible are about 360 m across. The sun illuminates the scene from the right. North is pointing towards the top of the Galileo mosaic. Both craters are situated between 60 and 65 degrees northern latitude at about 12.5 degrees western longitude.
A characteristic feature of both craters, almost identical in size, is the "pedestal" - an outward-facing, relatively gently sloped scarp that terminates the continuous ejecta blanket. Similar features may be seen in ejecta blankets of Martian craters, suggesting impacts into a volatile (ice)-rich target material. Furthermore, both craters appear crisp and feature terraces. Gula has a prominent central peak; Achelous instead may show the remnant of a collapsed central peak or a central pit that is not fully formed. On lower-resolution images taken under higher sun illumination angle, both craters are shown to have extended bright rays, especially Achelous, which demonstrates that these two craters are younger than the respective surrounding landscape.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
Voir l'image PIA01660: Pedestal craters Gula and Achelous on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
Voyager images are used to create a global view of Ganymede. The cut-out reveals the interior structure of this icy moon. This structure consists of four layers based on measurements of Ganymede's gravity field and theoretical analyses using Ganymede's known mass, size and density. Ganymede's surface is rich in water ice and Voyager and Galileo images show features which are evidence of geological and tectonic disruption of the surface in the past. As with the Earth, these geological features reflect forces and processes deep within Ganymede's interior. Based on geochemical and geophysical models, scientists expected Ganymede's interior to either consist of: a) an undifferentiated mixture of rock and ice or b) a differentiated structure with a large lunar sized "core" of rock and possibly iron overlain by a deep layer of warm soft ice capped by a thin cold rigid ice crust. Galileo's measurement of Ganymede's gravity field during its first and second encounters with the huge moon have basically confirmed the differentiated model and allowed scientists to estimate the size of these layers more accurately. In addition the data strongly suggest that a dense metallic core exists at the center of the rock core. This metallic core suggests a greater degree of heating at sometime in Ganymede's past than had been proposed before and may be the source of Ganymede's magnetic field discovered by Galileo's space physics experiments.
Galileo's primary 24 month mission includes eleven orbits around Jupiter and will provide observations of Jupiter, its moons and its magnetosphere. The Galileo mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page on the World Wide Web at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov.
Voir l'image PIA00519: Ganymede G1 & G2 Encounters - Interior of Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
An irregularly shaped caldera, or pit, within the bright swath called Sippar Sulcus on Jupiter's moon Ganymede dominates this image taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. The high-standing interior of the caldera is interpreted as evidence of the flow of a viscous material.
Elevation modeling indicates the height of the westernmost caldera floor material (arrow) is comparable to adjacent grooved material but decreases towards the east (right), where it is similar to nearby, lower-lying smooth terrain. The smooth terrain, generally lacking grooves or stripes, extends across the upper half of the image and crosscuts a similar but grooved band at the lower right. Analysis of such high-resolution images in combination with estimates of the features' relative elevations is helping scientists interpret the roles of volcanism and tectonics in creating the bright terrain on Ganymede.
This image was prepared by the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, and included in a report by Dr. Paul Schenk et al. in the March 1, 2001, edition of the journal Nature.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo/.
Voir l'image PIA03217: Caldera in Sippar Sulcus, Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
This view of the Nicholson Regio/Arbela Sulcus region on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, shows the stark contrast between the smooth bright terrain and the surrounding highly fractured dark terrain.
This observation was designed in part to distinguish between different models for how Arbela Sulcus and other groove lanes on Ganymede were formed. The volcanic model suggests that a relatively clean, water-rich lava filled a tectonic depression, then cooled to create a smooth surface. Tectonic models suggest that focused faulting and deformation of older dark terrain destroyed the pre-existing texture, which was brightened by exposure of underlying, clean ice. Analysis of these photos suggests a third and unexpected possibility: Arbela Sulcus may be similar to some bands on another of Jupiter's moons, Europa, formed by tectonic crustal spreading and renewal.
North is to the upper left of the picture and the Sun illuminates the surface from the west. The image, centered at ?14 degrees latitude and 347 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 258 by 116 kilometers (160 by 72 miles). The resolution is 133 meters (436 feet) per picture element. The images were taken on May 20, 2000, at a range of 13,100 kilometers (8,140 miles).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
This image was produced by DLR (German Aerospace Center), Berlin, and Brown University, Providence, R.I., http://solarsystem.dlr.de/ andhttp://www.planetary.brown.edu/.
Voir l'image PIA02573: Regional view of bright and dark terrain sur le site de la NASA.
This frame compares a high-resolution view of Arbela Sulcus on Jupiter's moon Ganymede (top) with the gray band Thynia Linea on another Jovian moon, Europa (bottom), shown to the same scale. Both images are from NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
Arbela Sulcus is one of the smoothest lanes of bright terrain identified on Ganymede, but subtle striations are apparent here along its length. This section of Arbela contrasts markedly from highly fractured terrain to its west and dark terrain to its east.
On Europa, gray bands such as Thynia Linea have formed by tectonic crustal spreading and renewal. Such bands have sliced through and completely separated pre-existing features in the surrounding bright, ridged plains. The younger prominent double ridge Delphi Flexus cuts across Thynia Linea. The scarcity of craters on Europa attests to the relative youth of its surface compared to Ganymede's.
Unusual for Ganymede, it is possible that Arbela Sulcus has formed by complete separation of Ganymede's icy crust, like bands on Europa. Tests of this idea come from detailed comparisons of their internal shapes and the relationships to the surrounding structures.
In the Ganymede image, north is to the top of the picture and the Sun illuminates the surface from the west. The image, centered at -15degrees latitude and 347 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 34 by 26 kilometers (21 by 16 miles). The resolution is 34 meters (112 feet) per picture element. The image was taken on May 20, 2000, at a range of 3,370 kilometers (2,094 miles).
In the Europa image, north is to the upper-right of the picture and the Sun illuminates the surface from the northwest. The image, centered at-66 degrees latitude and 161 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 44 by 46 kilometers (27 by 29 miles). The resolution is 45 meters (147 feet) per picture element. The image was taken on September 26, 1998, at a range of 3,817 kilometers (2,371 miles).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
This image was produced by DLR (German Aerospace Center), Berlin, and Brown University, Providence, R.I., http://solarsystem.dlr.de/ andhttp://www.planetary.brown.edu/.
This image is a computer-generated perspective view of ridges in the Uruk Sulcus region of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. This area is part of the bright grooved terrain that covers over half of Ganymede's surface, where the icy surface has been fractured and broken into many parallel ridges and troughs. Bright icy material is exposed in the crests of the ridges, while dark material has collected in low areas. The topographic information, which was generated from imaging of the same area on two successive flybys of Ganymede by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, reveals elevation differences of a few hundreds of meters between the highest and lowest points in this area.
The perspective view is looking toward the south, and the topography has been vertically exaggerated. The image is centered at 12°degrees latitude and 168°degrees longitude, and the finest details that can discerned in this picture are about 86 meters across. The image was taken on September 6, 1996 at 18 hours, 46 minutes, 57 seconds Universal Time at a range of 4196 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01620: Perspective View of Bright Ridges in Uruk Sulcus sur le site de la NASA.
Natural color view of Ganymede from the Galileo spacecraft during its first encounter with the satellite. North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the right. The dark areas are the older, more heavily cratered regions and the light areas are younger, tectonically deformed regions. The brownish-gray color is due to mixtures of rocky materials and ice. Bright spots are geologically recent impact craters and their ejecta. The finest details that can be discerned in this picture are about 13.4 kilometers across. The images which combine for this color image were taken beginning at Universal Time 8:46:04 UT on June 26, 1996.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA00716: Ganymede Color Global sur le site de la NASA.
The highest-resolution images ever obtained of Jupiter's moon Ganymede show that even smooth-looking terrain has been deformed at a fine scale.
The high-resolution image taken of the bright Harpagia Sulcus area by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during a May 20, 2000, flyby of Ganymede shows features as small as 16 meters (52 feet). This area was selected for a closer look because, in images taken by NASA's Voyager spacecraft about 20 years earlier, it looked as flat as a hockey rink. It appears smooth even in a medium-resolution Galileo image (at 116 meters or 380 feet per pixel) that is superimposed over a Voyager image in the top portion of this frame. But the closeup shot revealed that, instead of a hockey rink, the area has ups and downs that would be challenging for across-country skier.
North is to the top of the picture and the Sun illuminates the surface from the left. The medium-resolution image mosaic is centered at -16degrees latitude and 310 degrees longitude, and covers an area approximately 282 by 144 kilometers (175 by 89 miles).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
This image was produced by DLR (German Aerospace Center), Berlin, and Brown University, Providence, R.I., http://solarsystem.dlr.de/andhttp://www.planetary.brown.edu/.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA01058: Bright and Dark Slopes on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov.
Voir l'image PIA01089: Fractured Craters on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA01056: Ganymede Groove Lanes sur le site de la NASA.
The image covers an area approximately 80 kilometers (50 miles) by 52 kilometers (32 miles) across. The resolution is 189 meters (630 feet) per picture element. The images were taken on September 6, 1996 at a range of 9,971 kilometers (6,232 miles) by the solid state imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov.
Voir l'image PIA01087: Geological mysteries on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
This composite of three images was obtained by the solid state imaging (CCD) system aboard NASA's Galileo spacecraft on 6 September, 1996 (Universal Time) at a resolution of 88 meters per picture element (pixel). A lower resolution Voyager image of the same area is in the background. North is to the top. Part of this 350 kilometer (km) diameter unnamed palimpsest is visible as only a slight brightening of the surface in the upper left half of this image. The edge of the palimpsest crosses this picture from lower left to upper right.
Secondary craters 5 to 7 km across produced during the palimpsest-forming impact are visible outside the palimpsest, in the lower right half of the picture. Inside the palimpsest, short northwest-southeast trending chains of similar sized craters can be discerned but with much more difficulty, as these craters inside the palimpsest are buried by ejecta. Similarly, the southwest-northeast trending grooves seen clearly outside the palimpsest can be seen with difficulty for a short distance within the palimpsest, where they have been covered by ejecta. This shows that the edge of the palimpsest is the edge of an ejecta blanket.
Lower resolution images from the NASA's Voyager mission in 1979 revealed the palimpsests on Ganymede, but did not provide enough detail to allow them to be understood completely. Galileo images of this and several other palimpsests on Ganymede are used in conjunction with the Voyager images to provide a more complete understanding of just how these structures formed.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA01060: Palimpsest secondary craters on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
This montage compares New Horizons' best views of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, gathered with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) and its infrared spectrometer, the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA).
LEISA observes its targets in more than 200 separate wavelengths of infrared light, allowing detailed analysis of their surface composition. The LEISA image shown here combines just three of these wavelengths -- 1.3, 1.8 and 2.0 micrometers -- to highlight differences in composition across Ganymede's surface. Blue colors represent relatively clean water ice, while brown colors show regions contaminated by dark material.The right panel combines the high-resolution grayscale LORRI image with the color-coded compositional information from the LEISA image, producing a picture that combines the best of both data sets.The LEISA and LORRI images were taken at 9:48 and 10:01 Universal Time, respectively, on February 27, 2007, from a range of 3.5 million kilometers (2.2 million miles). The longitude of the disk center is 38 degrees west. With a diameter of 5,268 kilometers (3,273 miles), Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system.NASA's Galileo spacecraft took this image of dark terrain within Nicholson Regio, near the border with Harpagia Sulcus on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. The ancient, heavily cratered dark terrain is faulted by a series of scarps.
The faulted blocks form a series of "stair-steps" like a tilted stack of books. On Earth, similar types of features form when tectonic faulting breaks the crust and the intervening blocks are pulled apart and rotate. This image supports the notion that the boundary between bright and dark terrain is created by that type of extensional faulting.
North is to the right of the picture and the Sun illuminates the surface from the west (top). The image is centered at -14 degrees latitude and 320 degrees longitude, and covers an area approximately 16 by 15 kilometers (10 by 9 miles). The resolution is 20 meters (66 feet) per picture element. The image was taken on May 20, 2000, at a range of 2,090 kilometers (1,299 miles).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
This image was produced by Brown University, Providence, R.I.,http://www.planetary.brown.edu/.
Oblique view of two fresh impact craters in bright grooved terrain near the north pole of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. The craters postdate the grooved terrain since each is surrounded by swarms of smaller craters formed by material which was ejected out of the crater as it formed, and which subsequently reimpacted onto the surrounding surface. The crater to the north, Gula, which is 38 kilometers (km) in diameter, has a distinctive central peak, while the crater to the south, Achelous, (32 km in diameter) has an outer lobate ejecta deposit extending about a crater radius from the rim. Such images show the range of structural details of impact craters, and help in understanding the processes that form them.
North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the right. The image, centered at 62 degrees latitude and 12 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 142 by 132 kilometers. The resolution is 175 meters per picture element. The images were taken on April 5, 1997 at 6 hours, 33 minutes, 37 seconds Universal Time at a range of 17,531 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http:// galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01609: Fresh Impact Craters on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
Launched in October 1989, Galileo entered orbit around Jupiter on December 7, 1995. The spacecraft's mission is to conduct detailed studies of the giant planet, its largest moons and the Jovian magnetic environment.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web Galileo mission home page at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA00579: Ganymede Uruk Sulcus High Resolution Mosaic Shown in Context sur le site de la NASA.
View of two impact craters that are superimposed on Memphis Facula, a large bright circular feature in the otherwise generally dark terrain in Galileo Regio on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. These are thought to be impact craters because they share many of the features of such structures on other planets, including steep walls, flat floors, and central mountain peaks. Bright icy material is exposed on the walls, rims and peaks of these features and darker material can be seen covering the floors and streaming down the inner walls of the craters. The dark material may have been concentrated on the crater floors during the impact events. A dark line near the crater rim may be exposures of layered bedrock which has been uplifted. These craters have been degraded to the degree that their ejecta and surrounding secondary crater fields are no longer visible. The crater on the left (Chrysor) is about 6 kilometers (km) in diameter and the larger one on the right (Aleyn) is about 12 km wide. Smaller craters are seen as bright circles on the crater floors and in the surrounding areas. The density of these superposed impact features allows scientists to estimate the age of the surface and the age of the craters, thought to be many hundreds of millions of years old. Memphis Facula, a large 350 km diameter bright feature on which the craters are situated, appears to have formed from the excavation of bright water ice material during an ancient, large impact event.
North is to the top left of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the bottom. The image, centered at 15 degrees latitude and 134 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 23 by 23 kilometers. The resolution is 59 meters per picture element. The image was taken on June 27, 1996 at 6 hours, 21 minutes, 19 seconds Universal Time at a range of 2849 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01607: Dark-floored Impact Craters on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
View of a boundary between bright and dark terrain at the southern border of Galileo Regio on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. A narrow, 15 kilometer wide, band of fractured bright terrain runs from the upper left to lower right of this image. The dark terrain on either side of this band of bright terrain has been highly fractured in multiple directions by tectonic activity. The large bright circular feature in the upper right is probably an impact crater that has been topographically relaxed, perhaps indicating that the subsurface was warm in this region at some point in its history before the formation of the bright terrain. Such images help determine how the ancient dark terrain on Ganymede was converted into younger bright terrain.
North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from nearly overhead. The image, centered at 7 degrees latitude and 157 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 81 by 58 kilometers. The resolution is 160 meters per picture element. The image was taken on May 7, 1997 at 15 hours, 21 minutes, 16 seconds Universal Time at a range of 16218 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01616: Highly Fractured Dark and Bright Terrain sur le site de la NASA.
View of the dark ray crater Kittu on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. Kittu is seen in approximately true color, as imaged with the Galileo camera's violet, one micrometer, and near infrared filters. The crater shows a bright white central peak and rim, and dark brownish material surrounding it. Diffuse dark rays, sprinkled thinly atop surrounding grooved terrain, emanate from the impact site. The dark material dusted over the surface is probably part of a dark impactor (asteroid or comet) which was strewn across the surface upon impact. The impactor hit grooved terrain, and a straight segment of the crater's rim was created when a portion of the rim collapsed along the trend of an older fault.
North is to the bottom of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the left. The mosaic, centered at 0 degrees latitude and 335 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 70 by 100 kilometers. The resolution in the color portion of this image is about 280 meters per picture element, while the resolution in the black and white portion is 145 meters per picture element. The images were taken beginning on April 5, 1997 from 6 hours, 39 minutes, 46 seconds Universal Time at a range of 14252 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01611: Kittu Dark Ray Crater sur le site de la NASA.
A mosaic of four Galileo images of the Uruk Sulcus region on Ganymede (Latitude 11 N, Longitude: 170 W) is shown overlayed on the data obtained by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979. North is to the top of the picture, and the sun illuminates the surface from the lower left, nearly overhead. The area shown is about 120 by 110 kilometers (75 by 68 miles) in extent and the smallest features that can be discerned are 74 meters (243 feet) in size in the Galileo images and 1.3 kilometers (0.8 miles) in the Voyager data. The higher resolution Galileo images unveil the details of parallel ridges and troughs that are principal features in the brighter regions of Ganymede. High photometric activity (large light contrast at high spatial frequencies) of this ice-rich surface was such that the Galileo camera's hardware data compressor was pushed into truncating lines. The north-south running gap between the left and right halves of the mosaic is a result of line truncation from the normal 800 samples per line to about 540. The images were taken on 27 June, 1996 Universal Time at a range of 7,448 kilometers (4,628 miles) through the clear filter of the Galileo spacecraft's imaging system.
Launched in October 1989, Galileo entered orbit around Jupiter on December 7, 1995. The spacecraft's mission is to conduct detailed studies of the giant planet, its largest moons and the Jovian magnetic environment. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA00493: Uruk Sulcus Mosaic - Galileo over Voyager Data sur le site de la NASA.
View of the Marius Regio and Nippur Sulcus area of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede showing the dark and bright grooved terrain which is typical of this satellite. This regional scale view was imaged near the terminator (the line between day and night) and provides geologic context for small areas that were imaged at much higher resolution earlier in the tour of NASA's Galileo spacecraft through the Jovian system. The older, more heavily cratered dark terrain of Marius Regio is rutted with furrows, shallow troughs perhaps formed as a result of ancient giant impacts. Bright grooved terrain is younger and is formed through tectonism probably combined with icy volcanism. The lane of grooved terrain in the lower left, Byblus Sulcus, was imaged during the spacecraft's second orbit, as were Philus Sulcus and Nippur Sulcus, seen here in the upper left. Placing the small higher resolution targets of Galileo's second orbit into the context of more distant, lower resolution views of the areas surrounding and connecting them, and imaging them along Ganymede's terminator, allows for an integrated understanding of Ganymede' s geology.
North is to the top left of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the lower right. The image, centered at 43 degrees latitude and 194 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 664 by 518 kilometers. The resolution is 940 meters per picture element. The image was taken on May 7, 1997 at 12 hours, 50 minutes, 11 seconds Universal Time at a range of 92,402 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01618: Regional View of Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The ancient, dark terrain of Nicholson Regio (left) shows many large impact craters, and zones of fractures oriented generally parallel to the boundary between the dark and bright regions of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. In contrast, the bright terrain of Harpagia Sulcus (right) is less cratered and relatively smooth.
The nature of the boundary between ancient, dark terrain and younger, bright terrain, the two principal terrain types on Ganymede, was explored by NASA's Galileo spacecraft on May 20, 2000. Subtle parallel ridges and grooves show that Harpagia Sulcus's land has been smoothed out over the years by tectonic processes.
North is to the top of the picture. The Sun illuminates the surface from the left. The image, centered at ?14 degrees latitude and 319 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 213 by 97 kilometers (132 by 60 miles.) The resolution is 121 meters (about 250 feet) per picture element. The images were taken on May 20, 2000, at a range of 11,800 kilometers (about 7,300 miles).
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
This image was produced by DLR (German Aerospace Center), Berlin,http://solarsystem.dlr.de/.
This image shows crater Neith, an unusual impact structure about 160 km (100 miles) in diameter, situated on Jupiter's largest satellite, Ganymede. Impact features like Neith have been called "penepalimpsests" by some investigators or "dome craters" by others and are considered to be transitional between craters and palimpsests. Palimpsests are bright, nearly circular patches that are believed to be remnant impact features. They occur also on Callisto, Ganymede's neighbor farther distant from Jupiter.
Four images of Neith were obtained under low sun elevation in April 1997 during Galileo's 7th orbit around Jupiter with the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system from a distance of about 15,500 km (9,600 miles) to produce this mosaic. The pixel resolution is about 150 m/pixel - the smallest features that are still discernible are about 300 m across. The sun illuminates the scene from the right. North is approximately pointing towards the top of the mosaic. Neith is situated at about 29 degrees northern latitude and 9 degrees western longitude on Ganymede.
The most striking feature in Neith is a large, circular dome about 45 km in diameter. The dome is surrounded by a wreath of rugged terrain. The wreath does not represent the original crater rim but the rim of a large central pit instead. The rim itself is barely visible and is located along the outer boundary of a relatively smooth, circular area, assumed to be the crater floor, which in turn surrounds the wreath of rugged terrain. In some parts along the rim, inward-facing scarps may be seen. The rim is not circular but appears to be petal-shaped. Outside the rim, a continuous ejecta blanket may be discerned.
The morphology of impact features such as Neith results either from the response of a relatively weak target material to a high-energy impact or from long-term viscous relaxation of the surface subsequent to impact.
Absolute ages derived from crater frequency measurements are model-dependent. In one crater chronology model, based on impacts dominated by asteroids, Neith may be old and very likely was formed during a period of more intense bombardment than today, about 3.9 billion years ago. In a different model, based on impacts preferentially by comets with a more or less constant impact rate, Neith may be only about 1 billion years old.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
Voir l'image PIA01658: Dome crater Neith on Jupiter's satellite Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
Topographic detail is seen in this stereoscopic view of the Galileo Regio region of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. The picture is a computer reconstruction from two images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft this summer. One image of the Galileo Regio region was taken June 27, 1996, at a range of 9,515 kilometers (about 5,685 miles) with a resolution of 76 meters. The other was taken September 6, 1996 at a range of 10,220 kilometers (about 6,350 miles) with a resolution of 86 meters. The topographic nature of the deep furrows and impact craters that cover this portion of Ganymede is apparent. The blue-sky horizon is artificial.
The Galileo mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page on the World Wide Web at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA00521: Stereo View of Ganymede's Galileo Region sur le site de la NASA.
These images, taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft on its May 20, 2000, flyby of Jupiter's moon Ganymede, illustrate the boundary and different elevations between the dark, ancient terrain of Nicholson Regio (left) and bright, younger terrain of Harpagia Sulcus (right.) The bottom image is a wide view of the boundary, and the top image is an enlargement of the colorized strip.
An important goal of Galileo's Ganymede encounter was to understand the nature of the boundary between ancient, dark terrain and younger, bright terrain. The camera was aimed at the boundary to obtain both very high-resolution images (top) and medium-resolution context images(bottom). Color-coded elevations are indicated relative to the average elevation of the sampled area, with high elevation marked in red, and low in blue. Combining the two image mosaics allows scientists to derive a detailed description of the region from the overlap. The data shows that there are approximately 200 meters (about 650 feet) of topographic relief within the bright terrain here, and a deep depression marks the boundary between bright and dark terrains.
North is to the top of the pictures. The Sun illuminates the surface from the left. The larger image, centered at ?14 degrees latitude and 319 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 213 by 97 kilometers(132 by 60 miles.) The resolution of the high-resolution image is 20 meters (about 65 feet) per picture element, and the context image is at 121 meters (397 feet) per picture element. The higher resolution image was taken at a range of 2000 kilometers (over 1,200 miles).
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo . The images were produced by the German Aerospace Center (DLR)http://solarsystem.dlr.de/, and Brown University,http://www.planetary.brown.edu/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA02579: Bright-dark boundary and topographical model sur le site de la NASA.
When NASA's two Voyager spacecraft passed through the Jupiter system in 1979, they captured many high resolution images of the Galilean satellites, but these encounters left some regions of these four largest Jovian moons poorly seen. One of the primary objectives of NASA's Galileo mission was to acquire images of areas that Voyager could not see. This is one such image, showing part of the leading hemisphere of Ganymede. Many fragmented regions of dark terrain split by lanes of bright grooved terrain cover the surface. Several bright young craters can be seen, including a linear chain of craters near the center of the image which may have resulted from the impact of a fragmented comet, similar to comet Shoemaker-Levy/9 which hit Jupiter in 1994.
North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the left. The mosaic, centered at 0 degrees latitude and 285 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 2800 by 5100 kilometers. The resolution is 3.6 kilometers per picture element. The images were taken on February 21, 1997 at 20 hours, 25 minutes, 29 seconds Universal Time at a range of 34,386 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http:// galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01606: Completing a Global Map of Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
During Galileo's second orbit, a series of images were obtained within the northern polar cap of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, across a north-south trending boundary between the grooved terrain of Philae Sulcus and the dark terrain of Galileo Regio. The blurry appearing background of this scene is the best Voyager image of the area, at a resolution of about 1.4 kilometers per picture element. The Voyager data shows that the grooved terrain of Philae Sulcus to the west (left) is bright, and the older terrain of Galileo Regio to the east (right) is dark; however, this brightness difference is not at all apparent in the high resolution Galileo images. Instead, bright and dark patches occur in both Philae Sulcus and in Galileo Regio. The bright patches occur mostly on the north and east facing slopes of craters and ridges, which are expected to be colder, and therefore to collect frost in this high latitude region. The principal way that Ganymede's terrain types can be distinguished in the high resolution Galileo images is by their texture: the "bright" grooved terrain shows north-south trending ridges and grooves, and the ancient "dark" terrain shows a rolling appearance and is more heavily cratered.
North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the lower right. The image, centered at 63 degrees latitude and 168 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 94 by 64 kilometers. The finest details that can discerned in this picture are about 92 meters across. The images were taken on September 6, 1996 beginning at 18 hours, 52 minutes, 46 seconds Universal Time at a range of 2266 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http:// galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01608: High Latitude "Bright" and "Dark" Terrains on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA01061: Secondary Craters on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The boundary between the bright terrain of Harpagia Sulcus (right) and dark terrain of Nicholson Regio (left) areas of Jupiter's moon Ganymede springs out when viewed through red/blue 3-D glasses, in this image taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft as it flew by Ganymede on May 20,2000.
Details of the rough, ancient, heavily cratered dark terrain of Nicholson Regio are in stark contrast to the very smooth, bright, young terrain of Harpagia Sulcus. In the center lies the transition to the boundary between these two regions, providing evidence that extensional faulting marks the boundary. A series of steep slopes deform the dark terrain close to the boundary. In the bright terrain, a deep trough and flanking ridge delimit the boundary.
North is to the top of the picture. The Sun illuminates the surface from the left. The imaged region, centered at ?14 degrees latitude and 319degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 25 by 10 kilometers(15.5 by 6 miles.) The resolutions of the two data sets are 20 meters(66 feet) per picture element and 121 meters (397 feet) per picture element. The higher resolution images were taken at a range of 2,000 kilometers (about 1,200 miles).
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo . The image was produced by the German Aerospace Center (DLR),http://solarsystem.dlr.de and Brown University,http://www.planetary.brown.edu/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
Voir l'image PIA02578: Bright-Dark terrain boundary in stereo sur le site de la NASA.
This image shows a mosaic of Buto Facula, a so-called "palimpsest" situated in Marius Regio on Jupiter's largest satellite Ganymede. Palimpsests are bright, nearly circular patches that are believed to be remnant impact features. They preferentially, but not exclusively, occur in Ganymede's more densely cratered, older, dark terrain units and may also be found on Ganymede's outer neighbor Callisto.
The higher resolution digital image data in the center were obtained by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) camera system onboard the NASA spacecraft Galileo in May 1997 during Galileo's 8th orbit around Jupiter from a distance of about 18,600 km (11,560 miles). The pixel resolution is 180 m/pixel - the smallest features that are still discernible are about 360 m across. The sun illuminates the scene from the right at low angle, so morphological features are accentuated by long shadows. North is pointing towards the top of the mosaic. The lower resolution context in the background is given by Voyager images from 1979 when that spacecraft passed through the Jovian system at far greater distance from Ganymede than Galileo. The image center is about 12 degrees north of Ganymede's equator at a longitude of 24 degrees East.
From the center of Buto Facula outward, several morphological zones can be distinguished. The center of the palimpsest, about 40 to 50 km (25 to 31 miles) in diameter, is dominated by a relatively smooth (at SSI resolution) area that shows isolated small hills near the limit of resolution. The outline of the smooth area is roughly elliptical and in some parts petal-shaped. Also, inward-facing scarps occur along some parts of the outer boundary of the inner zone. The next outer zone is characterized by a much rougher surface and two to three almost circular ridges that don't form closed circles but rather concentric ring arcs instead. These ridges are about 40 km apart. The outermost zone is somewhat less rough than the ridge-arc zone and shows vestiges of underlying topographic features such as dark-terrain furrows and, as seen in the northeastern part of the mosaic, covers about half of an older crater. The outward boundary of Buto Facula, about 290 km (180 miles) across, is defined by a clear albedo difference on lower-resolution Voyager images taken at higher sun illumination angle, whereas on low-sun SSI frames, chains of presumably secondary craters appear just outside of the boundary zone. This is good evidence for Buto Facula being an impact structure.
A younger, fresh impact crater, about 20 km (12.5 miles) in diameter, cuts one of the ridges. Several clusters of secondaries within Buto Facula may be associated with this crater. A narrow, linear, NE-SW oriented scar about 40 km long very likely represents a crater chain whose individual craters are not well distinguishable at this resolution. Similar features may be observed elsewhere on Ganymede.
Currently, there are two models that describe the origin of palimpsests. In one model, the morphology of these features was almost completely erased by viscous surface relaxation that took place over several 100 million years. According to another model, the palimpsest morphology formed almost immediately subsequent to the impact of a high-velocity projectile that punched through the crust into a liquid or plastic layer, excavating highly mobilized material that was emplaced as a slush or slurry across the surface.
Densities of craters superimposed on surface features such as palimpsests are used to compare older and younger surface units. Absolute ages derived from crater densities, however, are model-dependent. In one crater chronology model, based on impacts dominated by asteroids, palimpsests may be rather old features, pointing back in time to a period of more intense bombardment than today, and may have ages on the order of 3.8 to 4 billion years. In a different model, based on impacts preferentially by comets with a more or less constant impact rate, palimpsests can be as "young" as only a few hundred million years.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
Voir l'image PIA01659: Buto Facula - A palimpsest on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
The spectrum shows the amount of reflected light as a function of wavelength from the crater floor of Melkart. Several distinct absorption features, caused by water ice, are evident at 1.5 and 2.0 microns. Beyond 3.0 microns the intensity increases again as the longer wavelengths are more sensitive to Ganymede's thermal radiation. The shape of the absorption features suggest that the ice is mixed with hydrated minerals. These relatively dark minerals probably cause the variations in ice brightness seen at visible wavelengths.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ galileo.
Voir l'image PIA00878: NIMS Observes Melkart Crater on Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
Impact craters dominate the surface down to the smallest features visible on the dark terrain of the Nicholson Regio region of Jupiter's moon Ganymede in this image taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. It is the highest resolution view ever obtained of Ganymede's dark terrain.
Both the regional-scale image at the bottom and high-resolution image at the top were taken by Galileo during its May 20, 2000, flyby of Ganymede. The latter are the highest resolution images ever obtained of Ganymede's dark terrain, which makes up about one third of Ganymede's surface.
Impact cratering is clearly the dominant mechanism of surface modification in this relatively ancient terrain, which is analogous to the cratered highlands of Earth's Moon. Small-scale craters seem to mimic larger-scale craters, as is apparent in the similarities between the high and medium resolution scenes. The bright spots are probably fresh ice-rich ejecta excavated by the most recent impact events.
North is to the top of the images and the Sun illuminates the surface from the west. The medium-resolution image, centered at ?15 degrees latitude and 337 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 237 by 130 kilometers (147 by 81 miles) at a resolution of 125 meters (410 feet) per picture element. The high-resolution image is at 28 meters (92 feet) per picture element.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/gallery/index.cfm.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
The images were produced by Arizona State University, Tempe, and Brown University, Providence, R.I. Their websites are at http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/ and http://www.planetary.brown.edu/.
Voir l'image PIA02571: Ganymede dark terrain at high resolution sur le site de la NASA.
This view of Arbela Sulcus, a 24-kilometer-wide (15-mile-wide) region of furrows and ridges on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, shows its relationship to the dark terrain surrounding it. NASA's Galileo spacecraft took these pictures during its May 20, 2000, flyby of Ganymede.
Arbela Sulcus lies overall slightly lower than the dark terrain of Nicholson Regio, a 3,700 kilometers (3,300 mile) area in the southern hemisphere. However, along the eastern margin (bottom), a portion of the dark terrain (probably an ancient degraded impact crater) lies even lower than Arbela Sulcus. Scientists did not find bright icy material on Arbela Sulcus, indicating that this ridgy area was not created by watery volcanic activity. Instead, they found fine striations covering the surface, along with a series of broader highs and lows that resemble piano keys. This suggests that the movement of underlying tectonic plates deformed the surface.
Combining images from two observations taken from different viewing perspectives provides stereo topographic information, giving valuable clues as to the geologic history of a region.
North is to the right of the image. The Sun illuminates the surface from the west. The image, centered at ?15 degrees latitude and 347 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 89 by 26 kilometers (55 by 16 miles). The image resolution is 70 meters (230 feet) per picture element. The images were taken on May 20, 2000, at a range of 3,350 kilometers (2,100 miles).
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. The images were produced by German Aerospace Center (DLR),http://solarsystem.dlr.de/ Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo
Voir l'image PIA02576: Perspective view of Arbela Sulcus, Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.
View of the Tiamat Sulcus region on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, imaged just after local sunrise. The illumination from such a low sun angle highlights the grooved topography of Tiamat. Furrows and fractures are apparent in the surrounding dark terrain also. North-south trending Tiamat Sulcus is divided in two by Kishar Sulcus, which trends east-west. The southern portion of Tiamat is wider than its northern portion, indicating that there has been a greater degree of extension south of Kishar Sulcus than north of it. The portion of Kishar Sulcus to the right of Tiamat Sulcus appears to have slid horizontally (with respect to the left portion of Kishar Sulcus) along a northwest-southeast trending strike-slip fault.
North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the right. The image, centered at 1 degree south latitude and 204 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 386 by 387 kilometers. The resolution is 494 meters per picture element. The image was taken on May 7, 1997 at 14 hours, 15 minutes, 7 seconds Universal Time at a range of 48,859 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01619: Morning in Tiamat Sulcus sur le site de la NASA.
A mosaic of four Galileo images of the Galileo Regio region on Ganymede (Latitude 18 N, Longitude: 149 W) is shown overlayed on the data obtained by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979. North is to the top of the picture, and the sun illuminates the surface from the lower left, about 58 degrees above the horizon. The smallest features that can be discerned are about 80 meters (262 feet) in size in the Galileo images. These Galileo images show fine details of the dark terrain that makes up about half of the surface of the planet-sized moon. Ancient impact craters of various sizes and states of degradation testify to the great age of the terrain, dating back several billion years. The images reveal distinctive variations in albedo from the brighter rims, knobs, and furrow walls to a possible accumulation of dark material on the lower slopes, and crater floors. High photometric activity (large light contrast at high spatial frequencies) of this ice-rich surface was such that the Galileo camera's hardware data compressor was pushed into truncating lines. The north-south running gap between the left and right halves of the mosaic is a result of line truncation from the normal 800 samples per line to about 540. The images were taken on 27 June, 1996 Universal Time at a range of 7,580 kilometers (4,738 miles) through the clear filter of the Galileo spacecraft's imaging system. Launched in October 1989, Galileo entered orbit around Jupiter on December 7, 1995. The spacecraft's mission is to conduct detailed studies of the giant planet, its largest moons and the Jovian magnetic environment. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo..
Voir l'image PIA00492: Galileo Regio Mosaic - Galileo over Voyager Data sur le site de la NASA.
View of a chain of craters named Enki Catena on Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. This chain of 13 craters probably formed by a comet which was pulled into pieces by Jupiter's gravity as it passed too close to the planet. Soon after this breakup, the 13 fragments crashed onto Ganymede in rapid succession. The Enki craters formed across the sharp boundary between areas of bright terrain and dark terrain, delimited by a thin trough running diagonally across the center of this image. The ejecta deposit surrounding the craters appears very bright on the bright terrain. Even though all the craters formed nearly simultaneously, it is difficult to discern any ejecta deposit on the dark terrain. This may be because the impacts excavated and mixed dark material into the ejecta and the resulting mix is not apparent against the dark background.
North is to the bottom of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the left. The image, centered at 39 degrees latitude and 13 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 214 by 217 kilometers. The resolution is 545 meters per picture element. The image was taken on April 5, 1997 at 6 hours, 12 minutes, 22 seconds Universal Time at a range of 27282 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http:// galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01610: Anatomy of a Torn Comet sur le site de la NASA.
This image shows a highly fractured lane of grooved terrain, Lagash Sulcus, which runs through an area of heavily cratered dark terrain within Marius Regio on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. The boundary between these two units is marked by a deep trough. Outside the groove lane, little fracturing is evident, suggesting that deformation is largely concentrated within the bright grooved area. The bright, heart-shaped feature just below the image center may be a patch of bright terrain, or the feature may be related to ancient impact event.
North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the upper right. The image, centered at 17 degrees south latitude and 156 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 230 by 230 kilometers. The resolution is 288 meters per picture element. The images were taken on June 6, 1997 at 14 hours, 56 minutes, 11 seconds Universal Time at a range of 28655 kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.
This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http:// galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.
Voir l'image PIA01617: Marius Regio, Ganymede sur le site de la NASA.