Juno probe will fly up to Jupiter's largest moon
NASA's Juno spacecraft will fly past Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, on Monday. He will approach this object at a distance of 1038 kilometers, according to The Daily Mail.
Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system and the only one with its own magnetic field. Its diameter reaches 5262 km, it is larger than Mercury and Pluto.
Juno will collect data on the composition and temperature of the satellite. He will fly past him at a speed of 19 kilometers per second. This means that it will change from a point of light to a visible disk and then back to a point of light in about 25 minutes.
This time will be enough for the JunoCam onboard thermal imager to record five locations on Ganymede.
“By flying this close, we will take Ganymede's exploration into the 21st century,” said research contributor Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
Previous research has shown that Ganymede has three layers: a sphere of metallic iron in the center (the core that generates the magnetic field), a spherical shell of rock (mantle) that surrounds the core, and an outer shell of ice about 800 km thick.
The Juno Microwave Radiometer (MWR) surveys the surface of Ganymede's water ice, showing ridges and ridges. According to scientists, these marks indicate cataclysms in the distant past.
Juno will also measure the background radiation near the satellite. Note that the convergence of a spacecraft and a satellite will be the first since 2000, when the Galileo flew up to Ganymede.
Earlier it became known that it can rain from helium inside Jupiter. Similar processes can occur on Saturn.
