Natural color view of Callisto from the Voyager 2
spacecraft during its encounter with the satellite on July 7, 1979.
The Sun illuminates the surface from the right.
Valhalla, an enormous (radius of 1,500 kilometers) impact basin with concentric rings, located
near the top and slightly left of center, is shown on the detail image at right.
Callisto, about the same size as Mercury, is the second largest moon of Jupiter.
Its icy surface has no high mountains, it flows slowly over time, erasing the small impact
craters.
It probably has no atmosphere.
Callisto, the outermost of the 4 Galilean satellites, was discovered in 1610.
Its equatorial radius is some 2,400 Km. With a mean density of 1.86 gm/cm3, its
escape velocity is 2.45 Km/sec.
It orbits Jupiter at a distance of 1,883,000 Km in 16.7 days.
The originals, excellent background texts, and larger versions of this and many other photographs of our Solar System are available at Views of the Solar System by Calvin J. Hamilton.
Updated: January 19 '98
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Back: ARVAL - Image Gallery (Voyager 2 - Color Image of Callisto)
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