NASA captures Jupiter’s largest moon up close for the first time in two decades

Posted:

Jun 10, 2021 08:31 GMT

The Juno probe was able to approach the surface of the Jovian moon by 1,038 km.

NASA’s Juno probe has taken close-up images of the surface of Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons, for the first time in two decades. reach at NASA.

Juno probe Approach 1038 km From the surface of Jupiter’s largest moon, more than any other spacecraft in more than 20 years. The last to do so was NASA’s Galileo space probe in 2000.

NASA released the first two images of the orb on Tuesday. The first was acquired by the JunoCam imager of orbiting Jupiter and the other by the Stellar Reference Unit navigation camera. Both show “in great detail” the surface of the moon, including the surface of the moon Drilling, long structural features, likely related to tectonic faults.

“This is the closest spacecraft to this giant moon in a generation,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator. “We’ll take our time before drawing scientific conclusions, but until then we can only marvel at this celestial marvel.”