Though larger than the blistering planet Mercury, the Jovian moon Ganymede is no place to go sunbathing.
Located ½-billion miles from the Sun, the water ice on its surface is frozen solid in frigid temperatures as low as minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
This makes the ice as hard as rock.
Still, a rain of charged particles from the Sun is enough to turn the ice into water vapor at high noon on Ganymede.
This is the first time such evidence has been found, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope’s spectroscopic observations of aurora on Ganymede spanning two decades.
Source
Located ½-billion miles from the Sun, the water ice on its surface is frozen solid in frigid temperatures as low as minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
This makes the ice as hard as rock.
Still, a rain of charged particles from the Sun is enough to turn the ice into water vapor at high noon on Ganymede.
This is the first time such evidence has been found, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope’s spectroscopic observations of aurora on Ganymede spanning two decades.
Source