Close-Up Photo of Jupiter’s Moon Europa Shows a Bizarre Surface

NASA’s Juno spacecraft took photographs of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa throughout a latest flyby. One of the images—launched this week by NASA—presents an intimate view of Europa’s floor options.

Juno has orbited the fuel large Jupiter since 2016, however solely not too long ago has NASA diverted the spacecraft’s consideration to the planet’s moons. Europa is of explicit scientific curiosity as a result of scientists consider a salty ocean lies beneath the moon’s frozen floor.

If such an ocean is there—one thing the upcoming Europa Clipper mission will examine utilizing surface-penetrating radar—it might host elements for all times, if not life itself.

The latest picture was taken throughout Juno’s flyby on September 29, throughout which the spacecraft got here inside about 220 miles of the moon’s floor. The picture covers a roughly 11,600-square-mile swath of Europa, a area dominated with grooves and ridges within the ice. It’s a black-and-white picture taken from about 256 miles above the floor and is the highest-resolution picture taken of a selected portion of the moon.

The new pic builds on the first photographs launched from the flyby. Darker splotches on the ice might point out one thing beneath the moon’s crust erupting onto the floor, in keeping with a latest NASA release. White flecks dotting the picture are signatures of high-energy particles from the radiation within the moon’s surrounding setting.

“These features are so intriguing,” mentioned Heidi Becker, the lead co-investigator for the digicam used to take the picture, within the launch. “Understanding how they formed – and how they connect to Europa’s history – informs us about internal and external processes shaping the icy crust.”

Though Juno started its concentrate on Jupiter, its investigation has expanded to that of 4 Galilean satellites and the fuel large’s rings—not so simply seen, however not too long ago captured in photographs by the Webb Space Telescope.

Juno flew by Ganymede (the biggest moon within the photo voltaic system) in June 2021, and in 2023 Io will get its personal flyby. Juno is considerably increasing its observational targets and will probably be supplanted within the early 2030s by NASA’s Europa Clipper, which is able to examine Europa’s capacity to foster life with state-of-the-art devices.

Europa’s floor could look fairly hostile in black and white and from 200 miles up, however beneath the ice, it could possibly be a completely totally different story.

More: Check Out Juno’s First Up-Close Images of Icy Europa