Juno Flyby Reveals Best New Images Of Jupiter’s Moon Europa In 20 Years

The ice moon Europa of Jupiter was recently viewed by the Juno spacecraft from a distance of only 352 kilometres (219 miles). These initial photographs were captured during the flyby. The flyby, which was closer to Earth than most satellites are, was made in an effort to better understand the mysterious planet as well as to go into a closer orbit near Jupiter.

The last time a spacecraft came within three days of Europa was when the Galileo mission flew low over its ice surface in the year 2000. Its reputation as one of the planets of most interests to astrobiologists searching for possible life in the Solar System was verified by the discoveries made at the time about Jupiter's fourth biggest moon. Prospects for a century of exploration have, however, taken a while to materialise.

It will be at least eight years until another spacecraft makes a close approach, but the new photographs captured by Juno will be examined for a very long time and likely inspire hundreds of research articles.

Europa, a moon of Jupiter, has a scarred surface caused by ice that has caused splits and schisms.

Even though Juno's minimum distance from the surface was one kilometre further than Galileo's, the photographs captured by JunoCam already had a greater resolution - 1 kilometre (0.6 miles) per pixel - than those acquired by Galileo. Astronomers anticipate learning a lot from the observations since imaging technology has advanced significantly in the last twenty years. Galileo's observations are after all still being used to make fresh discoveries today, even if its photos were just recently reprocessed to be considerably crisper.

The Juno spacecraft also has gravity sensors, high-energy particle detectors, and equipment to observe the ultraviolet, radio, and microwave portions of the spectrum. Each of them might yield significant data from the observation of Europa's surroundings.

The first pic of #Europa in twenty years.

Courtesy of @NASAJuno, processed by yours truly.

Look at the detail along the terminator 😍 pic.twitter.com/15Qvu4Otoc

— Paul Byrne (@ThePlanetaryGuy) September 29, 2022

"Juno's flyby of Europa was a terrific success," said Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in a NASA statement. "It's very early in the process, but by all indicators, it was," he said.

By capturing photographs of the terminator, or the line between day and night, JunoCam was able to highlight the ridges and troughs that conceal Europa's larger-scale smoothness. It's possible that the hole immediately to the right of the centre, close to the terminator, is a unique remaining impact crater. If this is a crater, it must be relatively recent because it is believed that changes in Europa's seas create movements in the ice that swiftly deteriorate craters that would persist for billions of years on most other worlds.

Europa has only been the smallest and least fascinating of Jupiter's four large moons up until the Voyager missions in 1979, four centuries after its discovery. Since it wasn't given precedence over Amalthea or any of Jupiter's other three large moons, Voyager 1 passed it at a far longer distance.

The smoothest object in the Solar System, nevertheless, according to Voyager 2, is the result of an ice crust covering an interior ocean. As the outlook for life on Mars and Titan grew bleaker, astrobiologists and science fiction writers alike began to speculate about the possibility of life in deep space.

Plans were made for a future lander as well as for the Europa Clipper to concentrate just on this one moon rather than Jupiter and its other satellites as it has in the past.

However, despite Galileo's near approach in 2000, financial restrictions prevented any more visits. Internal seas are fairly frequent among outer Solar System satellites, and even Pluto may have one, according to later expeditions. Astrobiologists' attention has since returned to Mars and Saturn's moon Enceladus, whose powerful geysers boost the possibility of collecting samples of the ocean there.

However, because Europa has the potential to be so significant, work on the Europa Clipper is already well underway, and NASA is still researching the options for a lander. Despite being set to launch in 2024, the Clipper will require two gravity assistance from Mars and Earth to reach Jupiter by 2030.