(Description below)
GANYMEDE
Natural color view of Ganymede from the Galileo spacecraft during its first encounter with the satellite. North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the right. The dark areas are the older, more heavily cratered regions and the light areas are younger, tectonically deformed regions. The brownish-gray color is due to mixtures of rocky materials and ice. Bright spots are geologically recent impact craters and their ejecta. The finest details that can be discerned in this picture are about 13.4 kilometers across. The images which combine for this color image were taken beginning at Universal Time 8:46:04 UT on June 26, 1996.
Ganymede is Jupiter's largest satellite with a radius of about 2600 kilometers, about 1.5 times that of our Moon. Ganymede has a bulk density of only approximately 2.0 g/cc almost half that of the Moon. Therefore, Ganymede is probably composed of a mixture of rock and ice. The features here, the large dark regions, in the northeast quadrant, and the white spots, resemble features found on the Moon, mare and impact craters respectively. The long white filaments resemble rays associated with impacts on the lunar surface. The various colors of different regions probably represent differing surface materials.