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This 12-frame mosaic is the highest resolution coverage ever obtained of the side of Europa that faces Jupiter. It was obtained by the camera on board NASA's Galileo spacecraft on 25 November 1999 during the spacecraft's twenty-fifth orbit of Jupiter. The new images have resolutions of about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) per picture element. Global context for these images was provided by lower resolution images acquired during Galileo's second and ninth orbits, which have resolutions of 7 and 13 kilometers (4 and 8 miles) per picture element, respectively.

Numerous linear features in the center of the mosaic and toward the poles may have formed in response to tides strong enough to fracture Europa's icy surface. Some of these features extend for over 1500 kilometers (900 miles). Darker regions near the equator on the eastern (right) and western (left) limbs may be vast areas of chaotic terrain. Bright white spots near the western limb are the ejecta blankets of young impact craters.

North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the left. The image, centered at 0 latitude and 10 longitude, covers an area approximately 2500 by 3000 kilometers. The finest details that can discerned in this picture are about 2 kilometers across. The images were taken by Galileo's Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on November 25, 1999 at 18 hours, 46 minutes, 20 seconds Universal Time when the spacecraft was at a distance of 94,000 kilometers (58,000 miles) from Europa.

Image produced by: Greg Hoppa, Planetary Image Research Lab. (PIRL), Lunar and Planetary Lab. (LPL), University of Arizona

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/images/io/ioimages.html.

NASA's Planetary Photojournal PIA-02528

March 6, 2000