NASA shares first ever picture of Jupiter's Moon Ganymede’s North Pole

Jupiter has a lot of moons but one particular reign supreme and that is Ganymede. The only moon in the solar system that is larger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede consists primarily of water ice and for the first time ever NASA’s Juno spacecraft was able to capture the first glimpses of ‘Ganymede’s ice north pole’. According to a press note released by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the infrared imagery collected by the spacecraft's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument provides the ‘first infrared mapping of the massive moon's northern frontier’. 

READ: NASA Astronauts Attach 'Robot Hotel' To Space Station, Here's What It Is

The scientists said that the images show an unusual form of ice exists at the pole, a type that is not encountered on Earth because of the magnetic field that filters particles from the sun. While on Earth the magnetic field provides a pathway for plasma to enter the atmosphere and create aurora, Ganymede, on the other hand, has no atmosphere to impede progress because of which the surface at its poles is constantly being bombarded by plasma from Jupiter’s gigantic magnetosphere. 

Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome, said, “The JIRAM data shows the ice at and surrounding Ganymede's north pole has been modified by the precipitation of plasma. 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”. 

READ: NASA Astronaut Shares Mesmerizing Video Of Lightning From Space | Watch

ESA to launch JUICE to explore Jupiter 

According to the press release, the ice near both poles of the moon is amorphous. The scientists explained that the phenomenon is because charged particles follow the moon’s magnetic field lines to the poles, where they impact, wreaking havoc on the ice and preventing it from having an ordered structure. The researchers said that the frozen water molecules detected at both poles have no appreciable order to their arrangement, and the amorphous ice has a different infrared signature that the crystalline ice found at Ganymede’s equator. 

The recent images of the Ganymede will help scientists analyse and understand the structures which will help provide further clues to the formation of Jupiter’s moons. NASA’s Juno spacecraft will also receive help in the next decade. According to the press note, the European Space Agency will seek to explore Ganymede when it launches JUICE -- the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer spacecraft in 2022. By 2030, JUICE is expected to reach Jupiter and by 2032 it is expected to perform close up science at Ganymede. 

(Image: NASA/Website) 

READ: Asteroid 2002 BF25 Will Pass Very Close To Earth's Orbit On July 21: NASA

READ: NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams On Space Sovereignty: 'It's Good For Competition'