Late in September, engineers at NASA made the choice to divert from orbiting Jupiter and investigate Europa, a distinctive moon that is thought to have salty waters beneath its thick surface.
On September 29, Juno buzzed the lunar surface, getting as near as 450 kilometres above the surface.
Days later, it transmitted data, which is now being analysed by scientists to show the true nature of this frozen world, where astronomers are hoping to detect signs of life and conditions conducive to habitability. Images show a terrain as well as unusual surface ridges.
The terrain appears to be rugged, with pits and troughs and numerous bright and dark ridges and bands that stretch across a fractured surface, revealing the tectonic stresses that the moon has endured over millennia.
Juno also picked up Callanish Crater, which appears as a circular dark feature in the lower right.
Four images taken by JunoCam on September 29 during Europa’s flyby have been analysed.
The data was collected by Juno during a few minutes that it had around Europa while flying at a speed of 23.6 kilometers per second. Nasa used the flyby to take advantage of the gravitational pull of the moon, which modified Juno’s trajectory, reducing the time it takes to orbit Jupiter from 43 to 38 days.
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