SCIENTISTS LISTENING TO MOON : GANYMEDE'S GASES SOUND LIKE PLANET.Byline: Jane E. Allen Associated Press Jupiter's huge moon Ganymede doesn't just look like a planet, it also sounds like one, scientists revealed Thursday. Thanks to some nifty technology, scientists played audio recordings of electromagnetic activity as the Galileo spacecraft twice passed through a region of charged particles surrounding Ganymede. The soaring whistle and hissing static provide further evidence that Ganymede - the largest moon in the solar system - has its own planet-like, magnetic cocoon called a magnetosphere magnetosphere: see Van Allen radiation belts. magnetosphere Region around a planet (such as Earth) or a natural satellite that possesses a magnetic field (see . Such a region of hot, ionized i·on·ize tr. & intr.v. i·on·ized, i·on·iz·ing, i·on·iz·es To convert or be converted totally or partially into ions. i gases and highly charged particles never before has been found around a moon. Donald Gurnett, a University of Iowa Not to be confused with Iowa State University. The first faculty offered instruction at the University in March 1855 to students in the Old Mechanics Building, situated where Seashore Hall is now. In September 1855, the student body numbered 124, of which, 41 were women. physicist and Galileo researcher, said the noise is consistent with magnetospheres he's studied at the planets Earth, Saturn and Jupiter. He said the spacecraft's Ganymede approach was quiet ``until all of a sudden, there's a big burst of noise that signals the entry into Ganymede's magnetosphere. Then for about 50 minutes we detected the kinds of noises that are typical of a passage through a magnetosphere. As we exited the magnetosphere, there was another big burst of noise.'' Scientists played the Ganymede sounds during a news briefing at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory “JPL” redirects here. For other uses, see JPL (disambiguation). Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a NASA research center located in the cities of Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge, near Los Angeles, California, USA. in Pasadena. Scientists discussed additional evidence, published this week in the journal Nature, for Ganymede's magnetosphere, as well as a magnetic field and probable hot, iron core, similar to Earth's. Ganymede, three-quarters the size of Mars at 3,269 miles across, has ridges, icy grooves and craters that hint at an Earthlike crust that pulls apart and fills in with flowing rock. NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. is preparing for Dec. 19's tantalizingly tan·ta·lize tr.v. tan·ta·lized, tan·ta·liz·ing, tan·ta·liz·es To excite (another) by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach. encounter with Jupiter's moon Europa, suspected of hiding a frozen ocean and possibly life beneath its fractured, icy crust. The unmanned Galileo spacecraft, now making a two-year tour of Jupiter and its largest moons, will come within just 433 miles of Europa. This week, NASA has been analyzing Europa images from 21,100 miles out. Galileo took them last month during a near-pass of frozen, pockmarked pock·mark n. 1. A pitlike scar left on the skin by smallpox or another eruptive disease. 2. A small pit on a surface: The gophers left the lawn covered with pockmarks. tr.v. Callisto: the oldest, outermost out·er·most adj. Most distant from the center or inside; outmost. outermost Adjective furthest from the centre or middle Adj. 1. and least geologically active of four major Jovian moons discovered by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610. Torrence Johnson, Galileo project scientist, said in an interview Wednesday that at first glance, the November Europa pictures ``look mind-boggling.'' The icy surface appears ``cross-crossed with little ridges all over the place. There are two or three little tiny craters just a few miles across, but no real craters.'' Johnson compared the complex surface pattern to what happens when you test melted sugar confections by ``dribbling with a spoon and see how long it takes for the lines to fade into the surface.'' ``It looks like ridges are being formed and are gradually slurping See pod slurping. back into the ice,'' he said. ``It's a very strange-looking picture. If we'd tried to sell a planet like that to (film director) George Lucas, Hollywood wouldn't have bought it. It would have looked too artificial.'' |
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