Detail View: NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection: Ganymede: Torn Comet - Crater Chain
|
Title:
|
Ganymede: Torn Comet - Crater Chain
|
|
Explanation:
|
This remarkable line of 13 closely spaced craters [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ PIAGenCatalogPage.pl?PIA01610 ] on Jupiter's moon Ganymede [ http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/pub/research/outerp/gany.html ] was photographed by the Galileo spacecraft in 1997. The picture covers an area about 120 miles wide and the chain of craters cuts across a sharp boundary between dark and light terrain. What caused this crater chain? During the exploration of the Solar System [ http://ceps.nasm.edu:2020/ETP/ETP.html ], crater chains like this one have been discovered [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950715.html ] in several places [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971209.html ] and were considered mysterious until a dramatic object lesson was offered by comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. In 1994 many denizens of planet Earth [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971026.html ] watched as huge pieces of this torn comet [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980801.html ] slammed into Jupiter itself in a spectacular series of sequential impacts [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980804.html ]. It is very likely that similar torn comets [ http://www.skypub.com/comets/sw3.html ] from the early history of the Solar System are responsible for this and other crater chains [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/news80.html ].
|
|
Credit and Copyright:
|
Galileo Project, Brown University [ http://www.planetary.brown.edu/planetary/ ], JPL, NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ]
|
|
keyword:
|
comet
|
|
facet_when:
|
1994
|
|
facet_where:
|
Ganymede
|
|
facet_what:
|
COMETS
|
|
facet_when_year:
|
1994
|
|
original url:
|
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980805.html
|
|
UID:
|
SPD-APOD-ap980805
|