HUBBLE TELESCOPE :-
- The Hubble telescope is the space telescope that was launched in 1990 and is still in operation and expected to die in 2030.
- It rotates in low earth orbit.
- It is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble.
- It is the largest and most multifaceted tool.
GANYMEDE :-
- It is a satellite of Jupiter, is the largest and most enormous of the solar system’s moons.
- It is the ninth-largest object of the solar system.
HUBBLE FINDS FIRST EVIDENCE OF WATER VAPOR AT JUPITER’S MOON GANYMEDE :-
- Researchers have come across that Ganymede’s surface temperature differs vigorously throughout the day, leading icy surfaces to release some small amounts of water molecules.
- Scientists have discovered the first evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s icy moon Ganymede with the help of the Hubble space telescope.
HOW WAS THE DISCOVERY MADE ?
- The first ultraviolet pictures of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede were taken by Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) in 1998.
- The images disclose a pattern of colorful ribbons of electric gas called auroral bands alike to the auroral ovals observed on the Earth and other planets with magnetic fields.
- These images are the evidence that the icy moon has a permanent magnetic field.
- The researchers judged that the similarities between the two ultraviolet monitoring to be due to the presence of molecular oxygen, O2.
- The differentiation between the two ultraviolet monitoring were explained by the presence of atomic oxygen- O.
- For supporting NASA’s Juno mission in 2018, Lorenz Roth, a researcher at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, led a team of researchers who set out to capture UV spectra of Ganymede using Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) instrument to measure atomic oxygen presence.
- The scientists carried out a combined analysis of new spectra taken in 2018 with the images from 2010 and 1998.
- The scientists said that there was hardly any atomic oxygen in Ganymede’s atmosphere, in comparison to the original interpretations of the data from 1998.
- This means that there should be a totally different explanation for the difference between the UV aurora images.
- The differences between the UV images were directly corresponding with where the water molecules would be expected in Ganymede’s atmosphere.
- The researchers discovered that the water vapor originates from ice sublimation caused by the thermal escape of H2O vapor from warm icy regions.
