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Galileo at Jupiter — meetings with remarkable moons

Nature volume 390, pages 23–26 (1997)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 26 February 1998

Abstract

The four large moons of Jupiter — Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto — form the most coherently organized planetary system known. Over the past two years, the Galileo spacecraft has deepened our knowledge of how these worlds are interconnected, and illuminated the uniqueness of each. Gravity data are beginning to reveal the moons' internal structure, and a new conundrum is emerging: how did outermost Callisto stay cool enough to remain an undifferentiated mixture of ice and rock?

The four large moons of Jupiter form the most coherently organized planetary system known. Over the past two years, the Galileo spacecraft has illuminated both the interconnections between these worlds and the uniqueness of each, challenging theories of moon formation and evolution.

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Figure 1: The orbits of the four large satellites of Jupiter.
Figure 2: Cut-away drawings of the four Galilean satellites, based on gravity and magnetic data.

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  1. William B. McKinnon is in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St Louis, 63130, Missouri, USA

    William B. McKinnon

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McKinnon, W. Galileo at Jupiter — meetings with remarkable moons. Nature 390, 23–26 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/36222

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