
Flyover video of Jupiter’s Europa - bentaber
https://kottke.org/18/02/flyover-video-of-jupiters-europa
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js2
A little more about what you're seeing:

 _Images of Europa from the Galileo spacecraft reveal a complicated terrain of
grooved linear ridges and crustal plates which seem to have broken apart and
rafted into new positions. That could indicate subsurface water or slush. In
the image above, blue tints represent relatively old ice surfaces while
reddish regions may contain material from more recent internal geological
activity._

The quote above is specifically referring to an image on the page from which I
took the quote:

[https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-
nasa/1998/a...](https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-
nasa/1998/ast02oct98_1)

But I believe the stills which comprise the video fit the same overall
description.

The mission page is [https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/in-
depth/](https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/in-depth/)

And I think the images can be found at [https://pds-
imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/volumes/galileo.html](https://pds-
imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/volumes/galileo.html)

~~~
some_account
It's interesting that nobody doubts that these images are real.

It's quite off topic for hacker news but I really encourage people to research
nasa and the so called space exploration program.

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anc84
Direct link
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHU35L3mtGc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHU35L3mtGc)

~~~
TeMPOraL
There's a near-vertical line in the terrain, starting at ~0:58 on the right
hand side, and continuing through the remainder of the video. If that was in a
game, I'd suspect a texturing or geometry problem (this is a small evidence
that we live in a simulation).

More seriously though, the linear features on the surface seem highly unusual;
I wonder what's the geological explanation for them? EDIT: reading through
other comments; apparently it's water freezing in cracks in the ice.

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JabavuAdams
Are those branching features sticking up above the ground, or are they carved
into the ground. Can't tell which way the lighting is going.

~~~
acqq
Above. It's icy, wherever the ice cracks the new water goes through the crack,
then freezes and as it takes more space than when fluid there is the
protruding line.

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deadprogram
The real "Europa Report" here. So happy to be inspired yet again by the great
work done at NASA.

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haolez
Amazing! I wonder if the colors are real or if they are inserted afterwards.

~~~
gmueckl
The colors are a reconstruction. As far as I remember, no camera on Galileo
had a set of color filters that would approximate human vision. They each had
a set of selectable color filters on a wheel, which had very narrow spectral
ranges, some even outside the human visual range. These filters were selected
for scientific reasons (e.g. exploit spectral bands where certain materials
have a particularly low or high reflectivity to help identify them). Any color
images you see from this and similar missions are reconstructions: a full
color image would need to be taken with the whole spectrum from about 400nm to
700nm, which is much wider than the color filers that are available. So what
you see is based on some kind of reconstruction of the parts of the visual
spectrum that is missing in the source data.

I do not know how far you can take the reconstruction in practice. If you know
the source illumination (it's the sun - easy), identify all the materials that
are in the images successfully (hard) and know their reflection spectra
(possible), you can in theory create realistic color impressions.

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savmac
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS – EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.

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grondilu
Do we know what makes the reddish patches here and there?

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IntronExon
[https://www.nasa.gov/content/reddish-bands-on-
europa](https://www.nasa.gov/content/reddish-bands-on-europa)

 _blue-white terrains indicate relatively pure water ice, whereas the reddish
areas contain water ice mixed with hydrated salts, potentially magnesium
sulfate or sulfuric acid._

~~~
telesilla
It makes me think of the scenes of the last Star Wars movie on the salt flats
with the red underlayers, perhaps they were inspired by Europa.

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vatotemking
What are those highway-like structures?

~~~
robin_reala
New ice. It’s believed Europa has a subsurface liquid ocean. Tidal flexing
from Jupiter causes the surface ice to crack and water wells up from the lower
ocean and refreezes.

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dreamfactored
Cool to see all the streets, they must be enormous

