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PIA02500: Sulfuric Acid on Europa
Frozen sulfuric acid on Jupiter's moon Europa is depicted in this image produced from data gathered by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. The brightest areas, where the yellow is most intense, represent regions of high frozen sulfuric acid concentration.
 Target Name:  Europa
 Is a satellite of:  Jupiter
 Mission:  Galileo 
 Spacecraft:  Galileo Orbiter
 Instrument:  Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer 
 Product Size:  837 x 796 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Producer ID:  P50592 MRPS95293  
 Addition Date:  1999-09-30 
 Primary Data Set:  Galileo EDRs 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA02500.tif (1.208 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA02500.jpg (55.43 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Frozen sulfuric acid on Jupiter's moon Europa is depicted in this image produced from data gathered by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. The brightest areas, where the yellow is most intense, represent regions of high frozen sulfuric acid concentration. Sulfuric acid is found in battery acid and in Earth's acid rain.

This image is based on data gathered by Galileo's near infrared mapping spectrometer.

Europa's leading hemisphere is toward the bottom right, and there are enhanced concentrations of sulfuric acid in the trailing side of Europa (the upper left side of the image). This is the face of Europa that is struck by sulfur ions coming from Jupiter's innermost moon, Io. The long, narrow features that crisscross Europa also show sulfuric acid that may be from sulfurous material extruded in cracks.

Galileo, launched in 1989, has been orbiting Jupiter and its moons since December 1995. JPL 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.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL

Image Addition Date:
1999-09-30