Ganymede, Io, and Europa are in what is called a resonance – every time Ganymede orbits Jupiter once, Europa orbits twice, and Io orbits four times. Ganymede orbits the Sun along with Jupiter and its other satellites every 12 Earth years. Ganymede completes an orbit around Jupiter about every seven Earth days (7.155). Ganymede orbits Jupiter at a distance of 665,000 miles (1,070,000 kilometers), making it third in distance from Jupiter among the Galilean satellites: From this distance, it takes sunlight 43 minutes to travel from the Sun to the Jovian system. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU) is the distance from the Sun to Earth. Jupiter is 5.2 astronomical units away from the Sun. Ganymede is about 665,000 miles (1.07 million kilometers) from Jupiter, which orbits about 484 million miles (778 million kilometers) from the Sun. Ganymede has a radius of 1,635 miles (2,631 kilometers) and is the largest moon in our solar system. Scientists think water and rock interacting are key for the development of life. The model indicated the icy moon’s rocky sea bottom might be in contact with salt water. Potential for LifeĪ computer model of Ganymede’s interior created in 2014 supported the idea that the development of primitive life might be possible there. Ganymede became the cupbearer of the Olympian gods. In mythology, Ganymede ("GAN uh meed") was a beautiful young boy who was carried to Olympus by Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter) disguised as an eagle. ( Jupiter now has 53 named moons and 26 provisional moons awaiting confirmation of discovery). The discovery eventually led to the understanding that planets in our solar system orbit the Sun, instead of our solar system revolving around Earth. The discovery, along with his discovery of three other large moons around Jupiter, was the first time a moon was discovered orbiting a planet other than Earth. Ganymede was discovered by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei on Jan. NASA’s Juno spacecraft took the most recent images of Ganymede’s surface during flybys in June 2021. This suggests to scientists that Ganymede's crust has been under tension from global tectonic processes. Ganymede has two distinct types of terrain: large, bright regions of ridges, and grooves that slice across older, darker terrains.
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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI | Full image and caption This image of the dark side of Ganymede was obtained by Juno’s Stellar Reference Unit navigation camera during its June 7, 2021, flyby of the moon.
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