Water vapor found in Ganymede's atmosphere for the first time

Ganymede is one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter, the seventh farthest fromamong all his companions , and

At the same time, the mass of Ganymede isonly 45% of the mass of Mercury, but among the moons of the planet, the planeton is record-large. 

Ganymede consists of roughly equal amountssilicate rocks and water ice. It is a fully differentiated body with a liquid core rich in iron. Presumably, in its bowels at a depth of about 200 km between layers of ice there is an ocean of liquid water.

Earlier, a largethe number of oxygen ions. Scientists assumed that its source was water molecules, which were knocked out of the satellite's ice shell by high-energy particles or sunlight. In the future, astronomers did not find a single trace of water in the atmosphere of Ganymede.

It is believed that the rarefied atmosphere of Ganymedearose as a result of constant evaporation of ice on its surface under the influence of sunlight and charged particles. However, observations showed that there was oxygen in its atmosphere, but no water. We first found traces of it in the Hubble data.

Research text

In a new analysis of the data, astronomers found, in addition to oxygen, water lines in the satellite's spectrum. Previously, they were drowned out by a stronger signal from oxygen ions.

The authors also found that the concentration of water vapor on the light and dark sides of the satellite is very different: on the solar side there were about 30 nanograms, and on the dark side there was no nanogram at all. 

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