NASA Remasters Stunning Image Of Jupiter's Moon Europa

NASA has again remastered images taken in the 1990s of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, and it is the most stunning version yet. In it we get a look at the moon's vein-like threading through an otherwise pitted and etched white landscape — says the space agency, this image best shows what Europa would look like to the human eye, never mind that it itself resembles a close-up shot of an eye. This follows a different version of the moon NASA released back in 2001, which was lower resolution and had more saturated colors.

To make this latest version, NASA used images of Europa taken by Galileo in the late 90s and assembled them together with the most realistic colors yet. Different photographs were taken using violet, near-infrared, and green filters, while image gaps were filled with simulated colors by looking at nearby regions to approximate what is missing.

To give an idea of the moon's massive size, every pixel (of the full-resolution version) represents 2 miles. Some of the patterns seen in the image are from the icy crust breaking and then icing over again, while the blue color variations are thought to be different ice grain size in relation to the white parts.

The areas with brown and red threads, meanwhile, are spots where the ice has other non-ice components in concentrated amounts. In this image, the right side of the planet is north. You can download the full-resolution version here (direct download link). For lesser resolutions, check out the link below.

SOURCE: NASA