What it’s: Europa, Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon.The place it’s: About 417,000 miles (671,000 kilometers) from Jupiter and 500 million miles (805 million km) from the solar.When it was once shared: Might 19, 2024. Why it is so particular: Fairly smaller than Earth’s moon, Europa is extra like a planet. It has a magnetic box, a tenuous oxygen setting and a liquid iron core. It additionally has an icy shell 11 miles (18 km) thick that hides a salty ocean underneath. Does that salty ocean bubble up in the course of the ice? Sure, suggests a newly revealed symbol of Europa returned to Earth by way of NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016. 
A view of Europa captured by way of NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in 2000 (Symbol credit score: ASA/JPL/College of Arizona)Juno’s ultra-sensitive Stellar Reference Unit tool snapped a picture throughout an in depth flyby on September 29, 2022, when the spacecraft handed inside of simply 220 miles (355 km) of Europa’s ice shell. It was once probably the most first high-resolution photographs of Europa since NASA’s Galileo spacecraft handed by way of in 2000.Similar: NASA finds ‘glass-smooth lake of cooling lava’ on floor of Jupiter’s moon IoGet the sector’s most attractive discoveries delivered instantly in your inbox.The black and white symbol — taken of Europa’s night time facet when it was once lit simplest with gentle mirrored by way of Jupiter — presentations a function nicknamed “the Platypus” (in a yellow field). Measuring about 23 miles by way of 42 miles (37 km by way of 67 km), this “chaos terrain” accommodates hummocks, ridges, ice blocks and darkish reddish-brown subject matter. It is the youngest function within the area imaged — and, scientists suspect, it is the place Europa’s ice shell permits wallet of saltwater from the moon’s subterranean ocean to pool. About 31 miles (50 km) above “The Platypus” is a double ridge operating east-west (blue field) with imaginable stains round it. It is idea those stains might be deposits from plumes of saltwater emerging as much as the outside from Europa’s ocean.Juno’s shut flyby additionally noticed 4 visible-light photographs of Europa taken by way of JunoCam, which display that the icy crusts on the north and south poles of the moon don’t seem to be the place they as soon as have been. This implies that Europa’s icy shell is free-floating, transferring concerning the moon.Juno’s project will result in 2025, however two extra missions are sure for Europa. NASA’s Europa Clipper will release later this yr and arrive in 2030. In the meantime, the Ecu House Company’s slower Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) introduced in 2023 and can arrive in 2031 to excursion 3 of Jupiter’s moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
