I Think We All Know How This Story Goes
We are now officially living in the prologue of a science fiction thriller.
- John D. Anderson, Gerald Schubert, Robert A. Jacobson, Eunice L. Lau,
William B. Moore, Jennifer L. Palguta, "Discovery of Mass Anomalies on
Ganymede", Science 305 (2004): 989--991 [link]
- Abstract: We present the discovery of mass anomalies on Ganymede,
Jupiter's third and largest Galilean satellite. This discovery is surprising
for such a large icy satellite. We used the radio Doppler data generated with
the Galileo spacecraft during its second encounter with Ganymede on 6 September
1996 to model the mass anomalies. Two surface mass anomalies, one a positive
mass at high latitude and the other a negative mass at low latitude, can
explain the data. There are no obvious geological features that can be
identified with the anomalies.
Well, at least it's not Europa.
(Seriously, this is a pretty cool inverse problem, and worth reading if
you're interested in
such.)
The Eternal Silence of These Infinite Spaces
Posted at August 27, 2004 08:45 | permanent link