JPL NASA News


So this is your time! Use it wisely my friend! Give yourself that chance of honest communication and the intimacy and deepening connection which can come out of it. Jupiter is circled by a bewitching duo of moons that are potentially capable of nurturing delicate tidbits of life as we know it. Like its more famous sister-moon, Europa, Ganymede might harbor a life-loving subsurface ocean of liquid water in contact with a rocky seafloor. This special arrangement would make possible a bubbling cauldron of fascinating chemical reactions--and these reactions could potentially include the same kind that allowed life to evolve on our own planet! The astronomers observed this effect in the upper layer of the lunar crust, termed the megaregolith. This layer is heavily pockmarked by relatively small craters, measuring only 30 kilometers or less in diameter. In contrast, the deeper layers of lunar crust, that are scarred by larger craters, appear not to have been as badly battered, and are, therefore, less porous and fractured.