Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: This is what it would look like to fly over the surface of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. NASA's robot spacecraft Galileo recently approached only 6000 miles from this frozen ice-ball of a moon. The above image is a digital reconstruction from two images taken during this flyby. The blue colour of the sky is artificial. Deep furrows cover Ganymede's surface, and several impact craters are also present. Galileo continues to orbit Jupiter and send back breathtaking photos of Ganymede, Io, Europa, Callisto, and, of course, Jupiter itself.