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A NASA spacecraft recently flew by Jupiter’s moon Europa, and one of its cameras spied fascinating features on the icy crust of the ocean world.
The Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016, made its closest approach yet to Europa on September 29, flying within 219 miles (352 kilometers) of its icy surface. The mission captured some of the highest-resolution images ever taken of Europa’s ice shell in over two decades.
Juno’s Stellar Reference Unit, a star camera that keeps the spacecraft oriented, captured an image that covers a fractured region of about 93 miles (150 kilometers) by 125 miles (201 kilometers).
Fine grooves and double ridges can be seen streaking across the surface. The double ridges are actually pairs of long parallel lines that suggest elevated areas in the ice.
There are also dark stains that indicate something from beneath the ice shell is erupting on the surface.
A surface feature resembles a musical quarter note below the center of the image, and it stretches 42 miles (68 kilometers) from north to south and 23 miles (37 kilometers) east to west.
White dots correlate with energetic particles from the moon’s radiation environment.
Juno’s star camera took the black-and-white image from 256 miles (412 kilometers) away while zipping by at about 54,000 miles per hour (86,905 kilometers per hour).
The camera was designed to operate in low-light conditions, hence the amount of detail captured even though that part of the moon’s surface was in nighttime and only dimly lit by sun reflecting off Jupiter’s cloud tops.
The camera has also been used to spot shallow lightning in Jupiter’s atmosphere and take images of the giant planet’s rings.
“This image is unlocking an incredible level of detail in a region not previously imaged at such resolution and under such revealing illumination conditions,” said Heidi Becker, lead coinvestigator for the star camera, in a statement.
“The team’s use of a star-tracker camera for science is a great example of Juno’s groundbreaking…
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