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The Color of Europa

The Color of Europa
The Color of Europa Tyre, an ancient impact basin more than 140 kilometers (90 miles) across, grabs our attention in one of the highest-resolution pictures of Europa yet obtained by Galileo. In this false-color image, the bright blue, east-west ridges crossing the region are much younger than the crater, illustrating how the moon maintains its youthful appearance. Older, darker surfaces are covered over with clean, relatively coarse-grained ice that is extruded along the fractures in Europa's frigid crust. Coarse-grained ice, which forms at warmer temperatures, may be a sign of liquid water below. Galileo images Tyre on April 4, 1997 from a distance of 703,776 kilometers (434,430 miles). NASA / JPL