Images suggest icy eruptions on Ganymede
By Ron Cowen
Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is a study in contrasts: Bright swaths of pure, frozen water slice through darker, heavily cratered ice. New stereo images of Ganymede suggest these swaths are the aftermath of eruptions of water or slushy ice that gave parts of the moon a facelift a billion or more years ago.
The findings also support the notion that an ocean, which now may lie beneath more than a hundred kilometers of ice, once resided nearer to Ganymede’s surface.