E
uropa is a strange looking moon of Jupiter with a large
number of intersecting features. It was discovered by Simon Marius and Galileo Galilei in 1610. It is unlike Callisto
and Ganymede
with their heavily cratered crusts. Europa has almost a complete absence
of craters as well as almost no vertical relief. As one scientist put it,
the features "might have been painted on with a felt marker". There is
a possibility that Europa may be internally active due to tidal
heating at a level one-tenth or less that of Io.
Models of Europa's interior show that beneath a thin 5 km (3 miles) crust
of water ice, Europa may have oceans as deep as 50 km (30 miles) or more.
The visible markings on Europa could be a result of global expansion where
the crust could have fractured, filled with water and froze.
| PHYSICAL DATA FOR EUROPA | |
|---|---|
| Mass (kg) | 4.8e + 22 |
| Mass (Earth = 1) | 8.0321e - 03 |
| Radius (km) | 1,569 |
| Radius (Earth = 1) | 2.460e - 01 |
| Mean Density (g/cm3) | 3.01 |
| Mean Distance from Jupiter (km) | 670,900 |
| Magnitude (V0) | 5.29 |
| ORBITAL DATA FOR EUROPA | |
|---|---|
| Rotational period (days) | 3.551181 |
| Orbital period (days) | 3.551181 |
| Mean orbital velocity (km/s) | 13.74 |
| Orbital eccentricity | 0.009 |
| Orbital inclination (degrees) | 0.470 |
| Escape (km/s) | 2.02 |
| Albedo | 0.64 |
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