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Europa

A collection of pictures of Jupiter's moon Europa,
taken by space probes.

Europa is the second innermost of Jupiter's four Galilean moons.

Europa features a cracked, icy surface, suggesting a body of liquid water underneath, kept liquid by tidal heating. Europa was the first body discovered in the solar system other than Earth presumed to have an ocean and thus a potential for extraterrestrial life.

Here are our favorite pictures of Europa. Like our other space galleries, the pictures have not been selected because of their scientific significance but because of their esthetic value and sometimes because of their historical importance.

The picture to the left was taken by the Galileo space probe on September 7, 1996, at a range of 677,000 kilometers (417,900 miles). / Source: NASA/JPL/DLR / Wikipedia

Europa was discovered on January 8, 1610 by Galileo Galilei. The Galilean moons were the first discoveries of moons in the solar system other than Earth's moon. They also were the first objects discovered using a telescope.

For the next 350 years, due to the limited resolution of telescopes, Europa and the other Galilean moons remained nothing more than light spec in a telescope.

The first somewhat closeup picture of Europa was taken by Pioneer 10 on December 3, 1973. The image was taken from a distance of 324,000 km (201,000 mi), which was to far to reveal any details. However, the picture sparked the first speculations about Europa's icy surface.

The first real closeup pictures, revealing Europa's surface features were taken by the Voyager space probes.



First image of Europa
Source: NASA / Wikipedia


Artist's concept of Voyager 1 passing Europa
Source: Naeblys / Alamy Stock Photo

Europa peeks from behind Jupiter
Voyager 2, July 3, 1979
Source: NASA / Planetary Society

Europa over Jupiter's Great Red Spot
Voyager 1, March 3 1979
Source: NASA / Planetary Society



Two stills of a gif showing Europa's rotation
Source: Astronomy Picture of the Day 		Highest resolution image
Voyager 2, July 9, 1979
Source: NASA / Planetary Society
NASA's Galileo probe entered Jupiter's orbit on December 8, 1995 and remained in orbit until September 21, 2003.

In November 1997, the probe started its Galileo Europa mission, consisting of eight consecutive Europa flybys through February 1999.

On Decemer 16, 1997, the probe performed its closet approach to Europa, passing at a distance of 196 km (122 mi.).

Artist's concept of Galileo passing Europa
Source: Wikimedia & NASA / space.com

High resolution picture taken November 26, 2014
Source: NASA / JPL / ESA
The following images are mosaics, composed of a number of pictures from different flybys, which is why there are no dates given. All image were taken during the Galileo Europa mission between December 1997 and February 1999. See the sources for more details.


Reddish Bands on Europa
Source: NASA / JPL

Pwyll Crater
Source: NASA / JPL

Ruddy "Freckles" on Europa
Source: NASA / JPL


Europa's Jupiter-facing hemisphere
Source: NASA / Planetary Society

Conamara_Chaos
Source: NASA / Planetary Society

Europa's trailing hemisphere
Source: NASA / Planetary Society

The Planetary Society and the JPL Photo Journal host large collections of images taken by Galileo.

Aside from the Pioneer and Voyager probes and the two satellites Galileo and Juno, the only spacecraft that came somewhat close to Europa was New Horizons, which passed Jupiter on February 28, 2007 in a gravity assist maneuver.

One day before closest approach to Jupiter, on February 27, 2007, New Horizon's LORRI camera, developed for very dim light, took a picture of Europa from a range of 3.1 million kilometers (1.9 million miles).

 Source:
NASA

Part of the Galileo Europa mission were a number of close flybys of the third of the Galilean moons, Callisto.

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