PIA00275: Europa In Color

Target Name: Europa Is a satellite of: Jupiter Mission: Galileo Spacecraft: Galileo Orbiter Instrument: Solid-State Imaging Product Size: 793 samples x 794 lines Produced By: PIRL / University of Arizona Producer ID: P47906 MRPS76668 Addition Date: 1997-09-07 Other Information: Science Magazine Article Primary Data Set: Galileo EDRs Full-Res TIFF: PIA00275.tif (2.331 MB) Full-Res JPEG: PIA00275.jpg (142.2 kB)

Original Caption Released with Image: False color has been used here to enhance the visibility of certain features in this composite of three images of the Minos Linea region on Jupiter's moon Europa taken on 28 June 1996 Universal Time by the solid state imaging camera on NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Triple bands, lineae and mottled terrains appear in brown and reddish hues, indicating the presence of contaminants in the ice. The icy plains, shown here in bluish hues, subdivide into units with different albedos at infrared wavelengths probably because of differences in the grain size of the ice. The composite was produced using images with effective wavelengths at 989, 757, and 559 nanometers. The spatial resolution in the individual images ranges from 1.6 to 3.3 kilometers (1 to 2 miles) per pixel. The area covered, centered at 45N, 221 W, is about 1,260 km (about 780 miles) across. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona