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Asteroid twice the size of Chicago spun Jupiter’s moon around, made gravity anomaly – study
A new study claims that a gigantic asteroid twice the size of Chicago may have struck Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, four billion years ago and changed its axis
A massive asteroid with a surface area approximately twice the size of the Chicago metropolitan area impacted Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, around four billion years ago, a new study claims.
The impact of this asteroid, if it actually occurred, would have drastically impacted the moon’s environment in ways scientists can only begin to fathom. Luckily, the means of proving, or disproving, this hypothesis and its implications may already be available.
The findings of this study were published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Scientific Reports.
What is Ganymede and what is so special about it?
Ganymede is the largest of the 100-plus moons orbiting Jupiter, and is also the largest moon in the Solar System. It is so big, that it is larger than the planet Mercury.
Just like the Earth’s moon, Ganymede is tidally locked, meaning only one side of it ever actually faces Jupiter.
Ganymede has long been fascinating for scientists due to its composition, with considerable evidence pointing to it having a huge subterranean ocean – one so vast that it could have more water than all of the Earth’s oceans combined.
