NASA Sees A 'Platypus' Move On Jupiter's Moon Europa

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Why it's so special: Slightly smaller than Earth's moon , Europa is more like a planet. It has a magnetic field , a tenuous oxygen atmosphere and a liquid iron core. It also has an icy shell 11 miles (18 km) thick that hides a salty ocean beneath.

Does that salty ocean bubble up through the ice? Yes, suggests a newly published image of Europa returned to Earth by NASA's Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016.

Juno's ultra-sensitive Stellar Reference Unit instrument snapped an image during a close flyby on September 29, 2022, when the spacecraft passed within just 220 miles (355 km) of Europa's ice shell. It was one of the first high-resolution images of Europa since NASA's Galileo spacecraft passed by in 2000.

The black and white image ⁘ taken of Europa's night side when it was lit only with light reflected by Jupiter ⁘ shows a feature nicknamed "the Platypus" (in a yellow box). Measuring about 23 miles by 42 miles (37 km by 67 km), this "chaos terrain" contains hummocks, ridges, ice blocks and dark reddish-brown material. It's the youngest feature in the region imaged ⁘ and, scientists suspect, it's where Europa's ice shell allows pockets of saltwater from the moon⁘s subterranean ocean to pool.

About 31 miles (50 km) above "The Platypus" is a double ridge running east-west (blue box) with possible stains around it. It's thought these stains could be deposits from plumes of saltwater rising up to the surface from Europa's ocean.

Juno's mission will end in 2025, but two more missions are bound for Europa. NASA's Europa Clipper will launch later this year and arrive in 2030. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency 's slower Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) launched in 2023 and will arrive in 2031 to tour three of Jupiter's moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Jamie Carter is a freelance journalist and regular Live Science contributor based in Cardiff, U.K. He is the author of A Stargazing Program For Beginners and lectures on astronomy and the natural world. Jamie regularly writes for Space.com, TechRadar.com, Forbes Science, BBC Wildlife magazine and Scientific American, and many others. He edits WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com .

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Hi. Since I graduated from college, I've been trying to find cool new interesting things to do. Creating special effects wins as my favorite.

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