However, in that observation, Galileo could not separate Io and Europa due to the low magnification of his telescope, so that the two were recorded as a single point of light. The first reported observation of Io and Europa was made by Galileo on 7 January 1610 using a 20×-magnification refracting telescope at the University of Padua. NASA's Europa Clipper is expected to be launched in October 2024, with a complementary lander possible based on its findings.Įuropa, along with Jupiter's three other large moons, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto, was discovered by Galileo Galilei on 8 January 1610, and possibly independently by Simon Marius. The European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) is a mission to Ganymede launched on Apthat will include two flybys of Europa. No spacecraft has yet landed on Europa, although there have been several proposed exploration missions. The Galileo mission, launched in 1989, provides the bulk of current data on Europa. Such plume activity could help researchers in a search for life from the subsurface Europan ocean without having to land on the moon. In May 2018, astronomers provided supporting evidence of water plume activity on Europa, based on an updated analysis of data obtained from the Galileo space probe, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. In addition, the Hubble Space Telescope detected water vapor plumes similar to those observed on Saturn's moon Enceladus, which are thought to be caused by erupting cryogeysers. This may be important in determining whether Europa could be habitable. Sea salt from a subsurface ocean may be coating some geological features on Europa, suggesting that the ocean is interacting with the sea floor. The predominant model suggests that heat from tidal flexing causes the ocean to remain liquid and drives ice movement similar to plate tectonics, absorbing chemicals from the surface into the ocean below. The apparent youth and smoothness of the surface have led to the hypothesis that a water ocean exists beneath the surface, which could conceivably harbor extraterrestrial life. Įuropa has the smoothest surface of any known solid object in the Solar System. In September 2022, the Juno spacecraft flew within about 200 miles of Europa for a more recent close-up view. In addition to Earth-bound telescope observations, Europa has been examined by a succession of space-probe flybys, the first occurring in the early 1970s. Its white- beige surface is striated by light tan cracks and streaks, but craters are relatively few. It has a very thin atmosphere, composed primarily of oxygen. Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is made of silicate rock and has a water-ice crust and probably an iron–nickel core. Europa was discovered independently by Simon Marius and Galileo Galilei and was named (by Marius) after Europa, the Phoenician mother of King Minos of Crete and lover of Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter). It is also the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System. Europa / j ʊ ˈ r oʊ p ə/ ( listen), or Jupiter II, is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the sixth-closest to the planet of all the 95 known moons of Jupiter.
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