Ganymede At 150,000 Miles

This picture of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest satellite, was taken by Voyager 1 on the afternoon of March 5, 1979, from a range of about 250,000 km (150,000 mi.). The center of the picture is at 60 north latitude and 318 longitude, and the distance across the bottom of the photograph is about 1000 km (600 mi.). The smallest features visible in this picture are about 5 km (3 mi.) across. This picture shows impact craters many of which display ray systems probably consisting largely of icy material thrown out by the impacts. Peculiar systems of sinuous ridges and grooves traverse the surface and are best seen near the terminator. These ridges and grooves are probably the result of deformation of the thick ice crust on Ganymede. JPL manages and controls the Voyager project for NASA's Office of Space Science.