Astronomy AST-A 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Galilean Moons, Impact Crater, Active Object
20 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Jupiter moons: galilean moons; listed closest to farthest: Iol the most volcanically active object in our solar system. Surface is very young, not one impact crater: volcanic eruptions occur on a daily basis. It shares europa and ganymede, periodically (every 7 days) line up and tug on io -> producing slightly elliptical orbits for all 3. Europa: completely covered by water ice which hides an interior of liquid water, that is heated by tidal heating from jupiter, oceans are about 60 miles deep. Ice thickness about 10-15 miles: europa may be home to life. Calisto: outermost of galilean moons, heavily cratered ice ball, shows no volcanic or tectonic activity, never had enough interior heat such that gravity could produce differentiation, dense rock and low density ice mixed throughout the interior. Neptu(cid:374)e"s moo(cid:374): triton: coldest moon in our solar system, reflects almost all the sunlight, orbits neptune in a backward manner, clockwise instead of the usual counter clockwise motion.
