Ganymede Photos from Juno are Spectacular

New Ganymede photos from Juno provide the first up-close view of this giant moon in nearly a generation.

The Juno spacecraft returns closeup photos of Ganymede for the first time in 20 years. Image credit: NASA/JPL/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

On June 7, 2021, at 1:35 pm EDT, the Juno spacecraft, soaring around the Jovian system, carried out a close encounter with the giant moon Ganymede.

Larger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede ranks as the largest moon in the Solar System. It is also the only moon in the Solar System known to have a magnetic field — a magnetosphere similar to a bubble of charged particles.

These Ganymede photos from Juno are just the third (fourth?) close look humans have carried out of this frozen world, following encounters with the pair of Voyager spacecraft in March and July 1979 and Galileo in 2000.

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Ganymede revealed in stunning detail by the JunoCam. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

Racing along at 19 kilometers (12 miles) per second, just 1,038 kilometers (645 miles) above the surface of Ganymede, the JunoCam imager (equipped with a green filter) recorded stunning views of the rocky, frozen moon. These new Ganymede photos from Juno reveal details in craters, ridges, and other geological features on this…