Recent content by Mercury 3488

40 million years old, complete and utter garbage. This FFI (Furrow Forming Impact) took place no less than 3.8 billion years ago, towards the end of the Late Heavey Bombardment and possibly a little earlier...

Not necessarily, there are still the same number of Perijoves as there would have been with the original 14 day orbits. However the orbits are nearly four times longer so the mission duration is hugely extended (53.5 day orbits) so this offers different rather than more oppoprtunities. The...

rod. Ganymede orbits Jupiter, not Saturn. I think the article meant 4 billion years old. I am not so sure that impacts necessarily explains Ganymede's internal differentiaton as opposed to Callisto's homogeny. Ganymede certainly formed closer to Jupiter than Callisto, where there would be a...

Not only the 40 billion year gaff, but also I thought that the Utopia Planitia on Mars was the previously largest known impact basin in the solar system???? Within the Jovian system, yes the Valhalla Basin on Callisto was the previously known largest or even among any of the moons in our Solar...