![]() ![]() Ganymede's magnetic field is probably created by convection within its liquid iron core, also created by Jupiter's tidal forces. The cause of the light terrain's disrupted geology is not fully known, but was likely the result of tectonic activity due to tidal heating. Lighter regions, crosscut by extensive grooves and ridges and only slightly less ancient, cover the remainder. ![]() Dark regions, saturated with impact craters and dated to four billion years ago, cover about a third of it. Its surface is composed of two main types of terrain. It is a fully differentiated body with an iron-rich, liquid core, and an internal ocean that may contain more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. ![]() ![]() Ganymede is composed of approximately equal amounts of silicate rock and water. Ganymede orbits Jupiter in roughly seven days and is in a 1:2:4 orbital resonance with the moons Europa and Io, respectively. Outward from Jupiter, it is the seventh satellite and the third of the Galilean moons, the first group of objects discovered orbiting another planet. Possessing a metallic core, it has the lowest moment of inertia factor of any solid body in the Solar System and is the only moon known to have a magnetic field. It has a diameter of 5,268 km (3,273 mi), making it 26 percent larger than the planet Mercury by volume, although it is only 45 percent as massive. The ninth-largest object (including the Sun) of the Solar System, it is the largest without a substantial atmosphere (albeit not the most massive one, which is Mercury). Ganymede, a satellite of Jupiter ( Jupiter III), is the largest and most massive of the Solar System's moons. ![]()
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