Jupiter represents one of the miracles of our Solar System. We should be thankful every day that we have the gas giant here in our cosmic vicinity. It works as a vacuum cleaner of the Solar System, attracting many asteroids and comets that could pose a threat to us. This happens due to Jupiter’s enormous gravity, as you might have already guessed.
But there are also other reasons why Jupiter is amazing. One of them is the fact that it has Ganymede revolving around it, meaning the biggest moon from our Solar System.
Ganymede creates an astonishing shadow on Jupiter
One recent photo taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on Jupiter in May 2019 will remain in history. Behold:
Jupiter and the shadow of Ganymede, @NASAJuno Perijove 40https://t.co/vX9mukMnnl pic.twitter.com/I8XhpK7afL
— Kevin M. Gill (@kevinmgill) March 1, 2022
Jupiter has many more moons than the Earth does. Seventy-nine of such natural satellites were discovered revolving around the gas giant so far, and they represent great places for astronomers in order to look for alien life.
We spoke in a previous article about how the European Space Agency (ESA) aims to launch the JUICE (the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) mission to look for alien life among Jupiter’s moons. The mission is scheduled to start next year in April, and it will be analyzing the moons known as Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. The mission also implies the analysis of Jupiter itself.
Olivier Witasse, a mission project scientist of JUICE, stated:
We don’t go to Jupiter all the time, in particular with the European Space Agency. So it’s a big mission for us,
The vision is really to understand whether [the target places] have what we call ‘habitable places’ around Jupiter.
However, you might have already figured out that landing on the surface of Jupiter is impossible since the planet itself is a gas giant. Sorry if we made you cancel any journey to Jupiter!
