Jupiter’s Moon Europa Poster – Version A
| Credit | NASA |
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Version A of the Europa installment of our solar system poster series.
The posters are best printed on 11x17 paper. Several download options are available in the column on the right.
About the image: Jupiter's icy moon Europa looms large in this color view, made from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
On the Back
Beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa is perhaps the most promising place to look for present-day environments suitable for life.
Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa’s water-ice surface is crisscrossed by long, linear fractures. Like our planet, Europa is thought to have an iron core, a rocky mantle and an ocean of salty water. Unlike Earth, however, Europa’s ocean lies below a shell of ice probably 10 to 15 miles (15 to 25 kilometers) thick and has an estimated depth of 40 to 100 miles (60 to 150 kilometers).
Europa is named for a woman abducted by the god Zeus in Greek mythology–Jupiter to the Romans.
Explore Europa in depth at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/europa