This take on Europa is the first image of the icy Jupiter moon returned by NASA’s New Horizons probe during a flyby past the planet this week.

New Horizons made its closest pass by Jupiter at about 12:45 a.m. EST (0545 GMT) today, coming within 1.7 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) to nab a 9,000 mile per hour (14,484 kph) speed boost on its path to distant Pluto and beyond [VIDEO: Follow the Jupiter flyby].

The probe’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) snapped this view of Europa at about 2:19 a.m. EST (0719 GMT) on Feb. 27, 2007 from a distance of about 1.9 million miles (3.1 million kilometers). The image is one of a series of photographs designed to pinpoint land formations near Europa’s terminator -- the dividing line between day and night -- where the low angle of incoming sunlight can highlight surface features [VIDEO: Passport to Pluto].  

Astronomers believe that Europa is covered in a thick layer of ice that overlays an ocean of water 62 miles (100 kilometers) below the moon’s surface. The Jovian satellite is about the size of Earth’s own Moon and sports a diameter of about 1,945 miles (3,130 kilometers).

View more Jupiter flyby images from New Horizons by clicking here.

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• VIDEO: Follow New Horizons on its Jupiter Flyby
• IMAGE MOVIE: View Jupiter’s 10-Hour Day as Seen by New Horizons
• Pluto-Bound Spacecraft to Nab Speed Boost in Jupiter Flyby
• VIDEO: Passport to Pluto
• IMAGES: Bound for Pluto
• IMAGES: The New Solar System
• Reaching for the Edge: Complete Coverage of New Horizon’s Pluto Mission
• All About Jupiter

-- Tariq Malik

Credit: NASA/JHU/APL/SwRI.