Finding detail in Europa’s dim light
Event image. Juno’s SRU took this single 10-millisecond exposure on 29 September 2022, using sunlight reflected from Jupiter to reveal a roughly 150 × 200-kilometre area. The note-shaped feature was later nicknamed the Platypus. White dots include energetic-electron strikes on the detector, rather than lights or surface objects. The photograph was published on 5 October 2022.
NASA/JPL image-use policy · credited mission imagery, resized to WebP
· Original image source · Image licenceA navigation camera and careful processing reveal less familiar terrain.
- World
- Europa
- Case date or period
- Observation · 29 September 2022
Look closer
Juno’s navigation camera obtained one short Europa exposure in Jupiter-shine. Its note-shaped feature and ridge shadows can be explored in two published presentations of that same observation; a separate JunoCam image supports a search along the limb.
Follow the evidence
Brian Swift’s enhanced limb view was processed to help search for eruptions; the source reports none identified in that image. A sensitive search can be informative even when the sought feature is absent.
Built by people looking closely
The credited image processors worked with publicly available mission observations. Their versions are part of this collection, with each person’s processing and licence retained. Compare the treatments and return to the underlying source when a small detail matters.
One dim-light exposure, several kinds of evidence
Heidi Becker and colleagues’ SRU study explains that flyby timing permitted just one Europa image, illuminated by sunlight reflected from Jupiter. White dots include energetic-electron strikes rather than surface objects. Shadows suggest relief, but no stereo pair was available. Cross-cutting relationships make the Platypus locally young; dark ridge-side deposits resemble proposed plume fallout. Neither supplies a dated eruption or direct view of buried water. The two SRU presentations here preserve the same exposure, rather than recording surface changes between 2022 and 2024.
Sources & further reading
- Juno's Star Camera Sees Europa Close-Up — NASA / JPL; original mission product metadata
- Europa Seen Up Close by Juno's SRU — NASA / JPL; original mission product metadata
- Looking for Eruptions at Jupiter's Moon Europa — NASA / JPL; original mission product metadata
- JunoCam public image-processing gallery — Mission Juno / public contributors
- A Complex Region of Europa’s Surface With Hints of Recent Activity Revealed by Juno’s Stellar Reference Unit — Becker and colleagues (2023) — Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets