Jupiter’s rover Juno, which is flying close to Europa’s ‘Jupiter’s Moon’, has released an image showing Europa’s surface in detail. The frozen surface of Europa is clearly broken into pieces.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA JPL) released images taken by the Juno spacecraft while flying close to Europa on the 29th of last month. On this day, the distance between the probe and Europa was only 352 km, making it the closest thing in regarding 20 years since the spacecraft Galileo in January 2000.
This time, Juno released a close-up image taken from a distance of 412 km with another camera ‘Stellar Reference Unit (SRU)’. The camera can also shoot in low-light environments, so it can be used to detect lightning in Jupiter’s atmosphere or capture Jupiter’s ring system.
This photo contains an area of 200 km horizontally and 150 km vertically at a rate of 256 to 340 meters per pixel. Grooves and ridges are clearly visible on the surface of the ice, and there is a huge ‘Quarter Note’ measuring 37km in width and 67km in length in the lower right corner.
The streaks are parallel ridges caused by ice uplift, and the black spots in the upper right and lower center are thought to be related to the eruption from the inside under the ice to the surface. The white dots are traces of high-energy particles from the severe radiation environment around Europa, NASA JPL explained.
This close flight of the Juno probe was the third closest ever. NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft was the first to approach Europa in 1979, photographing brown streaks that appear to be grooves and cracks on the surface, and in 2000 Galileo discovered evidence of an ocean beneath the surface of the icy planet Europa. The closest spacecraft in terms of distance are Galileo, Voyager 2, and Juno.
Jupiter, a gigantic gas planet, is famous for having numerous moons that are nicknamed the ‘small solar system’.
Among them, four of Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa are called ‘Galilean moons’ and have been the subject of interest by scientists.
The largest and brightest moon in the solar system, Ganymede, is larger than Mercury. Callisto is covered with dark ice and craters, and Io is the most volcanic moon in the solar system. Europa, with an equatorial diameter of 90% of the moon, is the sixth largest satellite in the solar system. It is estimated that
Juno made a close flight near Ganymede in June last year, and plans to fly close to Io next year to collect data for research.
“Juno started out with a focus on Jupiter, but with the extension of the mission, we’ve expanded our exploration to three of the four Galilean moons and the rings of the planet,” said Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Juno’s mission lead researcher. “The close flight shows that the ice shells of two of Jupiter’s most interesting moons are quite different.”
The data recorded by Juno will be used for the upcoming ‘Europa Clipper’ mission. This is a direct exploration mission to conduct close reconnaissance on Europa and investigate whether Europa, an icy satellite with an underground ocean, has the ability to embrace life. The ‘Europa Clipper’ spacecraft is expected to launch from Earth in October 2024 and begin exploration in 2030.
The European Space Agency (ESA) also plans to send the Jupiter Ice Satellite Orbiter (JUICE) in April 2023 to investigate Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto for three and a half years from July 2031.
Reporter Seo Hee-won (shw@etnews.com)
