Astronomy Picture of the Day
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2014 November 27
Galileo's Europa Remastered
Image Credit:
NASA,
JPL-Caltech,
SETI Institute,
Cynthia Phillips,
Marty Valenti
Explanation:
Looping through the Jovian system in the late 1990s, the
Galileo spacecraft
recorded stunning views of Europa and uncovered
evidence that the moon's icy surface likely hides
a deep, global ocean.
Galileo's Europa image data has been
newly
remastered here, using improved new calibrations to
produce a color image
approximating what the human eye might see.
Europa's long curving fractures hint at the subsurface
liquid water.
The tidal flexing
the large moon experiences in its elliptical orbit
around Jupiter supplies the energy to keep the ocean liquid.
But more
tantalizing is the possibility
that even in the
absence of sunlight that process could also supply the energy to
support life,
making Europa
one of the best places to look
for life beyond Earth.
What kind of life could thrive in a deep, dark, subsurface ocean?
Consider planet Earth's own
extreme
shrimp.
Tomorrow's picture: portrait of pacman
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(
MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (
UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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