What is so special about Europa – why is it attracting so much attention?
Europa is a puzzle. The sixth largest moon in our Solar System, Europa confounds and intrigues scientists. Few bodies in the Solar System have attracted as much scientific attention as this moon of Jupiter because of its possible subsurface ocean of water. The more we learn about this icy moon, the more questions we have. Because the nature of science is to ask questions, we cannot resist the mystery of Europa and its potential for possessing an ocean. The United States sent two spacecraft, Pioneer 10 and 11, to Jupiter in the early 1970’s. No one knew if a spacecraft could survive a flyby of Jupiter, but the Pioneers did survive, and they sent back valuable information for the next space mission. However, the Pioneer photographs of Jupiter’s largest moons were fuzzy and dim. The twin Voyager spacecraft flew by Jupiter and its moons in 1979, giving us our first close-up view of Europa. Voyager pictures show pale-yellow icy plains with red and brown mottled regions. Long cracks run for
