Jupiter, the largest planet of the Solar System, is in the focus of astronomers not only with its own beauty, but also with 80 different moons that have been discovered so far. Among these moons, Europa and Ganymede can come to the fore.
Jupiter’s giant moon Ganymede and its moons, known to be covered in ice, Europa have previously been photographed relatively closely with spacecraft such as Juno. This time, scientists shared the clearest photos of these satellites ever taken from the ground.
Photos of Europa and Ganymede taken from the ground:
Europa (left), Ganymede (right)
Scientists from the University of Leicester photographed the surfaces of the satellites with the help of the “Very Large Telescope” in Chile and started working on them. The photo of the two satellites was shared with the public as above.
It is quite normal for the satellites to appear blurry in the photos taken. Because NASA’s Juno spacecraft has recently managed to take the clearest pictures of these satellites. However, the main purpose of these photos was not really clarity, but the pursuit of the ‘cosmic fingerprint’.
The newly taken photos showed the amount of Sunlight reflecting off into space from the surface of Europa and Ganymede. These reflectance measurements are analyzed with a computer model and thus compared with existing reflectance measurements of known substances such as water and minerals. This allows us to study the chemical compositions in satellites from Earth.
The Juno spacecraft photographed Europa and Ganymede as follows:
Europe:
Ganymede:
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