Nasa Says Jupiter's Largest Moon Ganymede Definitely Has an Ocean

The Galileo spacecraft, which arrived at Jupiter in 1995, had already detected a possible magnetic field on Ganymede.

The Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that discovery by observing changes in the aurorae around the celestial body.

"Since the 1970s, there were speculations and models that Ganymede could possess an ocean," said Joachim Saur of the University of Cologne in Germany.

"We do not have these ambiguities anymore," he told reporters.

The latest findings from Hubble "provide the best evidence to date for the existence of an ocean on Ganymede."

Researchers found that Jupiter's own magnetic field interacts with Ganymede's, causing a rocking motion in the aurorae. This motion is reduced by magnetic friction applied by the presence of Ganymede's underground ocean.

Heidi Hammel, executive vice president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, said the approach showed that a space telescope could be "a powerful tool" to make inferences about the interior of a moon.

Already, scientists know there are oceans beneath surfaces of Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus. Jupiter's moon Callisto is believed to have subterranean water as well.

"Hubble observations have now confirmed the presence of a salty, electrically conducting ocean under the crust of Ganymede, and so when the JUICE mission ultimately goes into orbit around Ganymede it will have a very, very rich and exciting science mission," Hammel said.

Much remains to be learned about the temperature and depth of Ganymede's ocean.

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