Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA’s Juno spacecraft maps the northern pole of moon Ganymede for first time

By

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has imaged Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, and has captured images showing how its unusual magnetic field affects the ice at its poles.

Juno passed by Ganymede on December 26, 2019, and its path took it over the top of the never-before-mapped northern pole of the moon. The Juno team knew this would be a rare opportunity to observe the moon up close and personal, so they prepared by turning the craft so its instruments faced the surface of the moon.

Recommended Videos

Juno came within just 62,000 miles of Ganymede and used its Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument to collect 300 infrared images of the moon’s surface, which were used to create the infrared map of the northern part of the moon.

the first infrared mapping of Ganymede's northern frontier
These images the JIRAM instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft took on Dec. 26, 2019, provide the first infrared mapping of Ganymede’s northern frontier. Frozen water molecules detected at both poles have no appreciable order to their arrangement and a different infrared signature than ice at the equator. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM

These images reveal activity on Ganymede, which does not have an atmosphere but, like Earth, does have a magnetic field. This magnetic field interacts with energetic particles given off by the sun, called plasma, which is channeled toward the moon’s poles and impacts the ice there.

Related

“The JIRAM data show the ice at and surrounding Ganymede’s north pole has been modified by the precipitation of plasma,” Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome, said in a statement. “It is a phenomenon that we have been able to learn about for the first time with Juno because we are able to see the north pole in its entirety.”

The instrument used to capture these images, JIRAM, is capable of using infrared to look through Jupiter’s cloud layer and to see 30 to 45 miles beneath the clouds, but it can also be used for investigating Jupiter’s moons including Io, Europa, and Callisto as well as Ganymede.

“These data are another example of the great science Juno is capable of when observing the moons of Jupiter,” Giuseppe Sindoni, program manager of the JIRAM instrument for the Italian Space Agency, said in the statement.

This works paves the way for the European Space Agency’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, or JUICE, mission which is set to visit these moons in 2030 following its launch in 2022.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
There’s a problem with the Juno spacecraft’s camera
This illustration depicts NASA’s Juno spacecraft soaring over Jupiter’s south pole.

If you've enjoyed looking at beautiful images of Jupiter in recent years, then the odds are good that you've seen images taken by the JunoCam instrument on board the Juno spacecraft, currently in orbit around Jupiter. Unfortunately, this beloved science instrument has recently developed some problems, causing the loss of images collected during a recent flyby of the planet.

This illustration depicts NASA’s Juno spacecraft soaring over Jupiter’s south pole. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Read more
NASA’s Juno spacecraft to investigate Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io
NASA’s Juno mission captured this infrared view of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io on July 5, 2022, when the spacecraft was about 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) away. This infrared image was derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard Juno. In this image, the brighter the color the higher the temperature recorded by JIRAM.

NASA's Juno spacecraft is famous for the beautiful images of Jupiter it regularly captures using its JunoCam instrument, and its research into Jupiter's strange atmosphere. But recently the spacecraft has also been investigating Jupiter's moon, like the icy Europa or the largest moon in our solar system, Ganymede.

Now, Juno will begin an investigation of the intriguing volcanic moon Io. The spacecraft is set to perform a series of nine flybys of Io beginning on December 15, coming within 930 miles of the moon's surface.

Read more
NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashes down after journey around moon
At 12:40 p.m. EST, Dec. 11, 2022, NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a 25.5 day mission to the Moon. Orion will be recovered by NASA’s Landing and Recovery team, U.S. Navy and Department of Defense partners aboard the USS Portland ship.

NASA's Orion spacecraft has splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, marking the end of the Artemis I mission around the moon. The spacecraft entered the ocean off the California coast at 12:40 p.m. ET (9:40 a.m. PT) on Sunday, December 11.

The Orion spacecraft and the rocket that launched it, the Space Launch System, have now completed this first uncrewed test flight ahead of future crewed missions which will take astronauts around the moon on Artemis II, and to the lunar surface on Artemis III. The flight lasted 25 days and saw Orion travel more than 1.4 million miles into a distant orbit around the moon, performing two close flybys on the way out and on the return journey.

Read more