Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Planetary Photo Journal Collection
Title:
Europa
Original Caption Released with Image:
This image of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, the first Europa image returned by New Horizons, was taken with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera at 07:19 Universal Time on February 27, from a range of 3.1 million kilometers (1.9 million miles). The longitude of the disk center is 307 degrees West and the image scale is 15 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel. This is one of a series of images designed to look for landforms near Europa's terminator -- the line dividing day and night -- where low Sun angles highlight subtle topographic features.

Europa's fractured icy surface is thought to overlie an ocean about 100 kilometers (60 miles) below the surface, and the New Horizons team will be analyzing these images for clues about the nature of the icy crust and the forces that have deformed it. Europa is about the size of Earth's moon, with a diameter of 3,130 kilometers (1.945 miles).

This is one of a handful of images of the Jupiter system already returned by New Horizons during its close approach to Jupiter. Most of the data being gathered by the spacecraft are stored onboard and will be downlinked to Earth during March and April 2007.
Image Credit:
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Produced By:
Johns Hopkins University/APL
Mission:
New Horizons
Spacecraft:
New Horizons
Target Name:
Europa
Is a satellite of:
Jupiter
Instrument:
LORRI
Product Size:
256 samples x 256 lines
facet_what:
Sun
facet_what:
Moon
facet_what:
Jupiter
facet_what:
Earth
facet_what:
Europa
facet_what:
Imager
facet_what:
Pluto
facet_what:
New Horizons
facet_what:
LORRI
facet_where:
Jupiter
facet_where:
Europa
facet_where:
Pluto
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
facet_when:
April 2007
facet_when_year:
2007
Image #:
PIA09246
UID:
SPD-PHOTJ-PIA09246
orignial url:

Europa