Thera And Thrace On Europa
by Nasa/science Photo Library
Title
Thera And Thrace On Europa
Artist
Nasa/science Photo Library
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Europa's surface imaged by NASA's Galileo spacecraft using the solid state imaging system. Thera and Thrace are two dark, reddish regions that disrupt the older icy ridged plains on Jupiter's moon Europa. Thera appears to lie slightly below the level of the surrounding plains. Some bright icy plates observed inside appear to be dislodged from the edges of the chaos region. The curved fractures along its boundaries suggest that collapse may have been involved in Thera's formation. In contrast, Thrace (right) is longer, shows a hummocky texture, and appears to stand at or slightly above the older surrounding bright plains. Thrace abuts the grey band Libya Linea to the south and appears to darken Libya. One model for the formation of these and other chaos regions on Europa is complete melt-through of Europa's icy shell from an ocean below. Another model is that warm ice welled up from below and caused partial melting and disruption of the surface. The colour image is generated from the violet, green, and near-infrared filters of the solid state imaging system and exaggerates the subtle colour differences of Europa's surface. The mosaic, centred at about 50 degrees south latitude and 180 degrees longitude, covers an area approximately 525 by 300 kilometres.
Uploaded
February 16th, 2021
Embed
Share
Comments
There are no comments for Thera And Thrace On Europa. Click here to post the first comment.