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NASA Analyzes Forgotten Galileo Data from Flyby of Ganymede

posted by martyb on Wednesday May 02 2018, @04:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the all-that's-old-is-new-again dept.

takyon writes:

NASA dusts off FORTRAN manual, revives 20-year-old data on Ganymede

NASA scientists have made some new discoveries about Jupiter's giant moon Ganymede, thanks to a dedicated team, an elderly VAX machine and 20-year-old data from the long-defunct Galileo probe.

Fifteen years after Galileo (no, not that one) ended its days with a plunge into the atmosphere of Jupiter, NASA scientists have resurrected the 20-year-old datasets and added more detail to the puzzle of Ganymede's magnetosphere.

The new data, published in Geophysical Research Letters [DOI: 10.1002/2017GL075487] [DX], paints a picture of a stormy environment, with particles blasted off the moon's icy surface by incoming plasma raining down from Jupiter.

Ganymede is the solar system's largest and most massive satellite, but has slightly lower surface gravity than the Moon (0.146g vs 0.165g). Like many other icy objects in the solar system, Ganymede may have liquid oceans capable of supporting life. ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) will fly by Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa before eventually orbiting Ganymede. It may also include a Russian-built Ganymede lander.

Also at NASA.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:26AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:26AM (#674495)

    They didnt even preserve the original moonlanding tapes:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes [wikipedia.org]

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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:02PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:02PM (#674684) Journal

    They didnt even preserve the original moonlanding tapes:

    Or even worse, Dr. Who! [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:54AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:54AM (#674860)

    There really is no excuse for not preserving EVERYTHING regarding Apollo 11, everybody at the time knew it was historic. Of course on the other hand everybody also thought it was the beginning of what would be missions leading to permanent settlements by now. So they knew it was historic, they just didn't know it was THE crowning achievement of their civilization and they needed to be preserving things for the coming Dark Age.