🌌 NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Europa Full Face Credit:
Date: 1996-11-20

Explanation:
What mysteries might be solved by peering
into this crystal ball? This crystal ball is quite unusual because
it is actually a moon of Jupiter,
the crystals are ice-crystals, and the ball is not only dirty
and opaque but cracked beyond repair. Nevertheless, speculation
is rampant that oceans exist under these tortured ice-plains
that could support life. Europa,
the smallest of Jupiter's Galilean moons,
was photographed last month in natural color by the robot spacecraft Galileo,
now in orbit around Jupiter.
The brown patches are what one might think: dirt -- tainting
an otherwise white ice-crust. Europa,
nearly the same size as Earth's Moon,
similarly keeps one face toward its home planet. The hemisphere
of Europa
shown above is the one that always trails. Why is Europa's
surface the smoothest in the Solar System?
Where are Europa's craters?







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