Europa: Ice Rafting View PIA01127
View of a small region of the thin, disrupted, ice crust in the Conamara region of Jupiter's moon Europa showing the interplay of surface colour with ice structures.
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Image Credit: PIRL / University of Arizona
 

View of a small region of the thin, disrupted, ice crust in the Conamara region of Jupiter's moon Europa showing the interplay of surface colour with ice structures. The white and blue colours outline areas that have been blanketed by a fine dust of ice particles ejected at the time of formation of the large (26 km in diameter) crater Pwyll some 1000 km to the south. A few small craters of less than 500m in diameter can be seen associated with these regions. These were probably formed, at the same time as the blanketing occured, by large, intact, blocks of ice thrown up in the impact explosion that formed Pwyll. The unblanketed surface has a reddish brown color that has been painted by mineral contaminents carried and spread by water vapor released from below the crust when it was disrupted. The original color of the icy surface was probably a deep blue colour seen in large areas elsewhere on the moon. The colours in this picture have been enhanced for visibility. North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the right. The image, centered at 9 degrees north latitude and 274 degrees west longitude, covers an area approximately 70 by 30 km, and combines data taken by the Solid State Imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft during three of its orbits through the Jovian system. Low resolution colour (violet, green, and infrared) data acquired in September 1996, were combined with medium resolution images from December 1996, to produce synthetic colour images. These were then combined with a high resolution mosaic of images acquired on February 20th, 1997 at a resolution of 54m per picture element and at a range of 5340 km.  
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