Jupiter: the "King" and His Moons
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Europa-Ice_Floes-PIA00291.jpgThe typical "surface features" of Europa53 visiteJupiter's moon Europa, as seen in this image taken June 27, 1996 by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, displays features in some areas resembling ice floes seen in Earth's polar seas. Europa, about the size of Earth's moon, has an icy crust that has been severely fractured, as indicated by the dark linear, curved, and wedged-shaped bands seen here. These fractures have broken the crust into plates as large as 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) across. Areas between the plates are filled with material that was probably icy slush contaminated with rocky debris. Some individual plates were separated and rotated into new positions. Europa's density indicates that it has a shell of water ice as thick as 100 kilometers (about 60 miles), parts of which could be liquid. Currently, water ice could extend from the surface down to the rocky interior, but the features seen in this image suggest that motion of the disrupted icy plates was lubricated by soft ice or liquid water below the surface at the time of disruption. This image covers part of the equatorial zone of Europa and was taken from a distance of 156,000 kilometers (about 96,300 miles) by the solid-state imager camera on the Galileo spacecraft. North is to the right and the sun is nearly directly overhead. The area shown is about 360 by 770 kilometers (220-by-475 miles or about the size of Nebraska), and the smallest visible feature is about 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) across.
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Europa-Ice_Floes-PIA00578-PCF-LXTT-IPF.jpgEuropa's Ice Floes (Absolute Natural Colors; credits for the additional process. and color.: Dr Paolo C. Fienga/Lunexit Team/Italian Planetary Foundation)128 visiteJupiter's moon Europa, as seen in this image taken on June 27, 1996 by the NASA - Galileo Spacecraft, displays a few Surface Features that, in some areas, seem to resembe to Ice Floes (---> usually large, flat, and free masses of floating Sea Ice ) seen in the Polar Seas of our Home Planet Earth. Europa, which is about the size of Earth's Moon, possesses an Icy Crust that has been severely fractured, as indicated by the dark linear, curved, and wedged-shaped bands seen here. These Fractures have broken the Crust into Plates which are as large as 30 Km (such as about 18,6 miles) across. The Areas between the Plates are filled with Material that is probably Icy "Slush", contaminated with Rocky Debris. Some individual Plates were separated and rotated into new positions. Europa's density indicates that this Celestial Body has a shell of Water Ice thicker than approx. 100 Km (such as about 62 miles), parts of which could be liquid. Currently, Water Ice could extend from the Surface down to the Rocky Interior of Europa, but the Features seen in this image suggest that the motion of the disrupted Icy Plates was lubricated by soft Ice or perhaps liquid Water that was just below the Surface at the time of disruption.
This image covers part of the Equatorial Zone of Europa and was taken from a distance of approx. 156.000 Km (such as about 96.876 miles) by the Solid-State Imaging Subsystem onboard the NASA - Galileo Spacecraft. North is up and the Sun is nearly directly overhead. The area shown here is about 510 by 989 Km (such as approx. 317-by-614 miles), and the smallest visible Surface Feature is about 1,6 Km (approx. 1 mile) across.
This frame (which is the Original NASA - Galileo Spacecraft b/w image published on the NASA - Planetary Photojournal with the ID n. PIA 00578) has been additionally processed and then colorized, according to an educated guess carried out by Dr Paolo C. Fienga (LXTT-IPF), in Absolute Natural Colors (such as the colors that a human eye would actually perceive if someone were onboard the NASA - Galileo Spacecraft and then looked outside, towards the Surface of the Jovian moon Europa), by using an original technique created - and, in time, dramatically improved - by the Lunar Explorer Italia Team. Different colors, as well as different shades of the same color, mean, among others, the existence of different Elements present on the Surface of Europa, each having a different Albedo (---> Reflectivity) and Chemical Composition.MareKromium
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Europa-Icy cliffs-PIA01182.jpgIcy cliffs on Europa (extreme detail mgnf)82 visiteThis image, taken by the camera onboard NASA's Galileo spacecraft, is a very HR view of the Conamara Chaos region on Jupiter's moon Europa. It shows an area where icy plates have been broken apart and moved around laterally. The top of this image is dominated by corrugated plateaux ending in icy cliffs over a hundred meters (a few hundred feet) high. Debris piled at the base of the cliffs can be resolved down to blocks the size of a house. A fracture that runs horizontally across and just below the center of the Europa image is about the width of a freeway.
North is to the top right of the image, and the sun illuminates the surface from the east. The image is centered at approx. 9° North Latitude and 274° West Longitude. The image covers an area approx. 1,7 by 4 Km (about 1 by 2,5 miles). The resolution is 9 mt (roughly 30 feet) per picture element. This image was taken on December 16, 1997 at a range of 900 Km (about 540 miles) by Galileo's Solid State Imaging System.
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Europa-Icy_Cliffs-PIA01182-PCF-LXTT.jpgThe Icy Cliffs of Europa (Absolute Natural Colors; credits for the additional process. and color.: Dr Paolo C. Fienga - Lunexit Team)253 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
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Europa-Lineae-Agenor_Linea-HR-PIA01646.jpgThe "Agenor Linea" on Europa (detail mgnf + HR)60 visiteAgenor Linea is an unusual feature on Jupiter's icy moon Europa since it is brighter than its surroundings while most of Europa's ridges and bands are relatively dark. During the Galileo spacecraft's 17th orbit of Jupiter, high resolution images were obtained of Agenor Linea near Europa's day/night boundary so as to emphasize fine surface details. This mosaic shows high resolution images embedded in slightly lower resolution images which were also acquired during the 17th orbit. The Galileo images show that Agenoris not a ridge, but is relatively flat. Its interior consists of several long bands, just one of which is the very bright feature known as Agenor. Each long band shows fine striations along its length. A few very small craters pockmark Agenor Linea and its surroundings. Agenor is cut by some narrow fractures, and by some small subcircular features called lenticulae. Rough chaotic terrain is visible at the top and bottom of this photo, and appears to be "eating away" at the edges of Agenor. Though previously it was suspected that Agenor Linea might be one of the youngest features on Europa, this new view shows that it is probably not.
North is to the upper right of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the east. The image, centered at 44 degrees south latitude and 219 degrees west longitude, covers an area approximately 130 by 95 kilometers (80 by 60 miles). The highest resolution images were obtained at a resolution of about 50 meters (165 feet) per picture element and are shown here in context at about 220 meters per picture element. The images were taken on September 26th, 1998 at ranges as close as 5000 kilometers (3100 miles) by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
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Europa-Lineae-Agenor_Linea-PIA00877.jpgThe "Agenor Linea" on Europa69 visitenessun commento
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Europa-Lineae-Agenor_Linea.jpgEuropa: the "Agenor Linea"55 visiteCaption NASA originale:"This bright white swath cutting across the surface of icy Jovian moon Europa is known as "Agenor Linea". In all about 1000 Km long and 5 Km wide, only a section is pictured here as part of a combined color and black and white Galileo's images. Most linear features on Europa are dark in color but Agenor Linea is uniquely bright for unknown reasons. Also unknown is the origin of the reddish material along the sides. While these and other details of Europa's surface formations remain mysterious, the general results of Galileo's exploration of Europa have supported the idea that an ocean of liquid water lies beneath the cracked and frozen crust. An extraterrestrial liquid ocean holds out the tantalizing possibility of life". Curioso: alla NASA sono davvero incapaci di fare commenti equilibrati alle immagini che loro stessi propongono. Parlano di "Tantalizing possibility of life" sotto il ghiaccio di Europa, ma sono incapaci di dire che su Marte, forse, esiste qualche forma di vita...
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Europa-Lineae-Minos_Linea-PIA00275.jpgEuropa: Minos Linea (detail mgnf) - false colors85 visiteFalse color has been used here to enhance the visibility of certain features in this composite of 3 images of the Minos Linea region on Jupiter's moon Europa taken on 28 June 1996 Universal Time by the Solid State Imaging Camera on NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Triple bands, lineae and mottled terrains appear in brown and reddish hues, indicating the presence of contaminants in the ice. The icy plains, shown here in bluish hues, subdivide into units with different albedos at infrared wavelengths probably because of differences in the grain size of the ice.
The composite was produced using images with effective wavelengths at 989, 757 and 559 nnmts. The spatial resolution in the individual images ranges from 1,6 to 3,3 Km (about 1 to 2 miles) per pixel.
The area covered, centered at 45° North and 221° West, is about 1.260 Km (approx. 780 miles) across.
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Europa-Lineae-Minos_Linea-PIA00275.jpgEuropa: Minos Linea (an EDM in possible Absolute Natural Colors; credits for the additional process. and color.: Dr Paolo C. Fienga - Lunexit Team)138 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
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Europa-PIA00295.jpgEuropa: a splendid frame (in Super HD)53 visiteDark crisscrossing bands on Jupiter's moon Europa represent widespread disruption from fracturing and the possible eruption of gases and rocky material from the moon's interior in this four-frame mosaic of images from NASA's Galileo spacecraft. These and other features suggest that soft ice or liquid water was present below the ice crust at the time of disruption. The data do not rule out the possibility that such conditions exist on Europa today. The pictures were taken from a distance of 156,000 kilometers (about 96,300 miles) on June 27, 1996. Many of the dark bands are more than 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) long, exceeding the length of the San Andreas fault of California. Some of the features seen on the mosaic resulted from meteoritic impact, including a 30- kilometer (18.5 mile) diameter crater visible as a bright scar in the lower third of the picture. In addition, dozens of shallow craters seen in some terrains along the sunset terminator zone (upper right shadowed area of the image) are probably impact craters. Other areas along the terminator lack craters, indicating relatively youthful surfaces, suggestive of recent eruptions of icy slush from the interior. The lower quarter of the mosaic includes highly fractured terrain where the icy crust has been broken into slabs as large as 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) across. The mosaic covers a large part of the northern hemisphere and includes the north pole at the top of the image. The sun illuminates the surface from the left. The area shown is centered on 20 degrees north latitude and 220 degrees west longitude and is about as wide as the United States west of the Mississippi River.
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Europa-PIA00366.jpgEuropa: computer mosaic from Voyager 253 visiteEuropa looks like a cracked egg in this computer mosaic of the best Voyager 2 images. In this presentation, the variation of surface brightness due to the angle of the sun has been removed by computer processing, so that surface features can be seen equally well at all places. The many broad dark streaks show up well, but this presentation does not bring out the much fainter and more enigmatic light streaks. These pictures were taken from a distance of about 250.000 Km and show features as small as 5 Km across.
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Europa-PIA00578-PCF-LXTT.jpgThe Icy Floes of Europa (Absolute Natural Colors; credits for the additional process. and color.: Dr Paolo C. Fienga - Lunexit Team)248 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
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