Photos: Europa, Mysterious Icy Moon of Jupiter

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Time for Europa

The Europa Explorer would use gravity-assist flybys of both Venus and Earth, and thus would be able to deliver about three times the payload mass to the Jupiter system of previous concepts like Europa Orbiter.

Europa's Buried Lakes

Britney Schmidt/Dead Pixel VFX/Univ. of Texas at Austin

Europa's "Great Lake." Scientists speculate many more exist throughout the shallow regions of the moon's icy shell.

Europa's Thera Macula

Paul Schenk/NASA

Thera Macula (false color) is a region of likely active chaos production above a large liquid water lake in the icy shell of Europa. Color indicates topographic heights relative to background terrain. Purples and reds indicate the highest terrain.

Linear Fractures on Europa

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ SETI Institute

This enhanced-color view from NASA's Galileo spacecraft shows an intricate pattern of linear fractures on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
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