Science and Exploration

Source Region for Possible Europa Plumes

By Keith Cowing
March 4, 2014
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Source Region for Possible Europa Plumes
Europa Montage
NASA/SETI Institute

This reprojection of the official USGS basemap of Jupiter’s moon Europa is centered at the estimated source region for potential water vapor plumes that might have been detected using the Hubble Space Telescope.
The view is centered at -65 degrees latitude, 183 degrees longitude. In addition to the plume source region, the image also shows the hemisphere of Europa that might be affected by plume deposits. This map is composed of images from NASA’s Galileo and Voyager missions. The black region near the south pole results from gaps in imaging coverage.

Larger image

SpaceRef co-founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.