The closest image of Jupiter’s moon Europa, the place most likely to harbor life

We are only 400 kilometers away from confirming, or denying, if there is life outside of Earth. But the answer will have to wait.

the probe June of the POT has taken the closest photograph of Europethe jupiter’s moon considered by experts the place with more likely to find life in all the Solar system.

NASA’s Juno probe was launched in 2011, and it took five years to reach Jupiter. His goal was to make 36 orbits around the planet and its moonswith the intention of obtaining data related to the atmosphere, the presence of water, magnetic and gravitational fields, and the auroras of the poles, among many other things.

in 2022 June keep spinning around Jupiter. On September 29, he was in the news again because he approached only 352 kilometers from the moon Europa, one of Jupiter’s 79 moons. Only the Galileo probe, more than 20 years ago, had come so close, but with lower resolution cameras.

The most detailed photo of the moon Europa

This image that you will see below was taken at 412 kilometers from the surface of Europeat a speed of 24 kilometers per second.

Shows a section of the moon europe which occupies 150 x 200 kilometers, illuminated by the brightness of Jupiter. It has a resolution of 256 to 340 meters for each pixel.

It is a very important photograph for scientists, who hope to find new clues that increase the possibility of finding life beyond Earth:

As you can see, the surface of the moon europe it has nothing to do with that of our Moon, or with the reddish surface of Mars.

Its name is not due to our continent. Europa was the mother of King Minos of Crete, and the lover of Zeus. It is slightly larger than our Moonbut it has a unique feature: a layer of ice that surrounds it.

What you see in the photos are grooves drawn on the ice, although experts are not sure how they were produced. Many think that there’s a warmer ocean under that iceand the conditions could be given to harbor life.

Photographs like these can offer new clues, but it takes time to study and contrast them.

The closer and more detailed photos of the moon europe of Jupiter, taken at just over 400 kilometers, are spectacular. But they raise many unanswered questions. why are there so many grooves in the ice? What causes them? Are we looking for life in the right place?