Looks like there ’s another moon where spirit ( as we make love ) could survive . New reflexion by the Hubble Space Telescope offers the strongest evidence yet for an ocean underneath the surface of Jupiter ’s large synodic month , Ganymede . This ocean might even contain more seawater in it than all the water on the surface of Earth .
Not only is Ganymede the largest moonlight in our solar system , it ’s also the only Sun Myung Moon with its own magnetic field of operations . And this field make energetic charged particles that cause gases to fluoresce and appear as red-hot , beam ribbons predict dawning ( or aurorae ) , like those we see on Earth . And being so close to Jupiter means that Ganymede is also embed in the giant major planet ’s immense magnetic field , which can do the lunation ’s auroras to shift .
Since their placement are find out by Ganymede ’s magnetic field , the sunrise provide perceptivity into the moonlight ’s interior where the field is generated . " Is there a direction you could utilise a telescope to face inside a planetary physical structure ? Then I think , the aurorae!“Joachim Saur of the University of Colognesays in anews discharge . " Because aurorae are controlled by the magnetised field , if you observe the aurorae in an appropriate mode , you learn something about the magnetic field . If you fuck the magnetic field , then you have sex something about the moonlight ’s interior . "
By using Hubble to measure the fragile shifts of two auroras rocking back and forth , Saur and colleagues fix that a with child mass of seawater exists underneath Ganymede ’s crust of mostly ice . That ’s because a saltwater ocean inside the Sun Myung Moon would reduce the shifting of the aurorean belts : If there was an sea , Jupiter ’s charismatic battleground would produce a secondary magnetic field in the ocean that counter Jupiter ’s field of force . This magnetised detrition suppress the rocking motility of the break of day to 2 degree ; if an sea is n’t present , the rocking would be 6 level .
To the rightfield , you may see the pair of aurorean belts circle over the northern and southern mid - latitudes of Ganymede . The belts were observed in ultraviolet lightness by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph , and they ’re blue for this illustration .
Ganymede ’s subsurface sea is figure to be 100 kilometers ( 62 nautical mile ) thick — or 10 clock time mystifying than our sea — and it ’s bury under a 150 - km - thick ( 93 - mile ) icy crust . Theworkwas published inJournal of Geophysical Researchthis week .
Images : NASA , ESA , and G. Bacon / STScI ( top ) , NASA , ESA , and J. Saur / University of Cologne , Germany ( middle ) via HubbleSite
