Ganymede's Alien Landscape: Salt, Organics, and Extraterrestrial Clues

NASA's Juno mission has observed mineral salts and organic compounds on the surface of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Data for this discovery was collected by the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) spectrometer aboard the spacecraft during a close flyby of the icy moon. The findings, which could help scientists better understand the origin of Ganymede and the composition of its deep ocean, were published on Oct. 30 in the journal Nature Astronomy. Federico Tosi, a Juno co-investigator from Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome and lead author of the paper, speaks with senior astronomer Franck Marchis about this discovery and what it could mean for Ganymede's subsurface oceans and possibly life. (Recorded 25 January 2024.) Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02107-5