A NASA engineer decided to take a detour from flying around Jupiter to explore its moon, Europa.
Europa is considered to be unique as it is believed to have salty oceans underneath its thick crust. Juno explored this unique moon on September 29, and it was about 450 kilometres above its surface.
After it beamed back the data, scientists are now revelling in this multi-coloured icy world, where there are hopes of finding a sign of life and conditions for habitability.
The images reveal unique ridges on the surface and terrain beside the day-night boundary.
Moon Europa | Nasa/Kevin M. Gill / Fernando Garcia Navarro
This landscape's photo appears to be rugged, with pits 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.
The data is collected by Juno in a few minutes while flying around Europa at a speed of 23.6 kilometres 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.
