Photos: Europa, Mysterious Icy Moon of Jupiter

By Space.com Staff
published

Time for Europa

The Europa Explorer would use gravity-assist flybys of both Venus and Earth, and thus would be able to deliver about three times the payload mass to the Jupiter system of previous concepts like Europa Orbiter.

Europa's Buried Lakes

Britney Schmidt/Dead Pixel VFX/Univ. of Texas at Austin

Europa's "Great Lake." Scientists speculate many more exist throughout the shallow regions of the moon's icy shell.

Europa's Thera Macula

Paul Schenk/NASA

Thera Macula (false color) is a region of likely active chaos production above a large liquid water lake in the icy shell of Europa. Color indicates topographic heights relative to background terrain. Purples and reds indicate the highest terrain.

Linear Fractures on Europa

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ SETI Institute

This enhanced-color view from NASA's Galileo spacecraft shows an intricate pattern of linear fractures on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
News and editorial team

Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.