JPL: NASA Issues 'Remastered' View of Jupiter's Moon Europa

[bystander]

NASA Issues 'Remastered' View of Jupiter's Moon Europa
NASA | JPL-Caltech | Galileo | 2014 Nov 21

[url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA19048][b][i]Europa's Stunning Surface[/i][/b][/url] - [b][i]Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute[/i][/b] [i]The puzzling, fascinating surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa looms large in this newly reprocessed color view, made from images taken by Galileo in the late 1990s.[/i]

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Scientists have produced a new version of what is perhaps NASA's best view of Jupiter's ice-covered moon, Europa. The mosaic of color images was obtained in the late 1990s by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. This is the first time that NASA is publishing a version of the scene produced using modern image processing techniques.

This view of Europa stands out as the color view that shows the largest portion of the moon's surface at the highest resolution.

An earlier, lower-resolution version of the view, published in 2001, featured colors that had been strongly enhanced. The new image more closely approximates what the human eye would see. Space imaging enthusiasts have produced their own versions of the view using the publicly available data, but NASA has not previously issued its own rendition using near-natural color.

The image features many long, curving and linear fractures in the moon's bright ice shell. Scientists are eager to learn if the reddish-brown fractures, and other markings spattered across the surface, contain clues about the geological history of Europa and the chemistry of the global ocean that is thought to exist beneath the ice.

In addition to the newly processed image, a new video details why this likely ocean world is a high priority for future exploration. ...

[bystander]

Signs of Europa Plumes Remain Elusive
NASA | JPL-Caltech | Cassini | 2014 Nov 18

• Data from Cassini's 2001 Jupiter flyby show Europa contributes less material to its surrounding environment than previously thought.
• Unlike Saturn's known-active moon Enceladus, Europa is surrounded by very tenuous hot, excited gas.

A fresh look at data collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its 2001 flyby of Jupiter shows that Europa's tenuous atmosphere is even thinner than previously thought and also suggests that the thin, hot gas around the moon does not show evidence of plume activity occurring at the time of the flyby. The new research provides a snapshot of Europa's state of activity at that time, and suggests that if there is plume activity, it is likely intermittent.

The Europa results are being presented today at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco and published in the Astrophysical Journal. Europa is considered one of the most exciting destinations in the solar system for future exploration because it shows strong indications of having an ocean beneath its icy crust.

Members of Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph (UVIS) team analyzed data collected by their instrument during the brief time it observed Europa in 2001, as Cassini sped through the Jupiter system en route to Saturn. The observations show that most of the hot, excited gas, or plasma, around Europa originates not from the moon itself, but from volcanoes on the nearby moon Io. In fact, from their data, the researchers calculated that Europa contributes 40 times less oxygen than previously thought to its surrounding environment. ...

Cassini Search Finds Few Europa Atmospheric Plumes
Planetary Science Institute | 2014 Dec 18

A New Understanding of the Europa Atmosphere and Limits on Geophysical Activity - D. E. Shemansky et al

• Astrophysical Journal 797(2) 84 (2014 Dec 20) DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/797/2/84