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PIA05077: Lumps Within Ganymede
This mosaic of Jupiter's moon Ganymede consists of more than 100 images acquired with NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecrafts, showing irregular lumps beneath the icy surface.
 Target Name:  Ganymede
 Is a satellite of:  Jupiter
 Mission:  Galileo 
 Spacecraft:  Galileo Orbiter
 Instrument:  Solid-State Imaging 
 Product Size:  720 x 540 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Primary Data Set:  Galileo EDRs 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA05077.tif (703.9 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA05077.jpg (61.89 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Scientists have discovered irregular lumps beneath the icy surface of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede. These irregular masses may be rock formations, supported by Ganymede's icy shell for billions of years.

This mosaic of Jupiter's moon Ganymede consists of more than 100 images acquired with NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecrafts. The gravity anomalies or lumps inferred from the Galileo radio Doppler data are shown in red. The mosaic shows the surface of Ganymede with its geographic coordinate system and the Galileo gravity results superimposed.

The trajectory path of Galileo's second Ganymede flyby on September 6, 1996, is shown in green. There are no obvious geologic features associated with the anomalies. For images and information about the Galileo mission, visit JPL's Galileo Solar System Exploration.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL

Image Addition Date:
2004-08-13