Astronomy Picture of the Day - powered by LUNEXIT.IT

Today's APOD is a "dated" HR view (taken by the NASA - Galileo Probe on December 16, of the AD 1997) that shows us a small portion of the Conamara Chaos Region, located on Jovian moon Europa, and revealing, among many other ineteresting Surface Features (such as deep and sharp Canyons and bizarre-looking Surface Striations above all) a number of Impact Craters which range, in size, from about 30 to over 450 mt (slightly over 1/4 of a mile) in diameter.

The large number of Impact Craters seen here, as a matter of fact, is quite unusual for Europa. This section of Conamara Chaos lies inside a Bright Ray of Material which was (likely) ejected by the large Impact Crater, Pwyll, that lies about 1000 Km (approx. 620 miles) to the South of the location imaged here. The presence of Impact Craters within the Bright Ray suggests that many of them should be Secondary Craters (and we wish to remind you that Secondary Craters form when a certain amount of material - possibly huge Boulders and Rocks of the most different sizes, all generated by the Primary Impact (such as, in this scenario, the one that formed the Crater Pwyll) and always belonging to the very same Celestial Body that was hit -, since they were lacking the necessary energy to escape the Gravity Field of Europa and so, afterwards, get dispersed in the Interplanetary Space, they endend up - once their momentum was entirely lost - by falling down, back on Europa itself, but all over Regions which, obviously, were all very distant from the one where the Primary Impact occurred).

North is to the upper right of the picture and the Sun illuminates the Surface of Europa from the East. The image, centered at approx. 9° North Latitude and 274° East Longitude, covers an area of approx. 8 by 4 Km (such as about 5 by 2,5 miles). The finest details that can be discerned in this picture are about 20 mt (66 feet) across. The image was taken from a distance of approx. 960 Km from Europa.

This frame has been colorized in Absolute Natural Colors (such as the colors that a human eye would actually perceive if someone were onboard the NASA - Galileo Probe and then looked outside, towards the Surface of the Jovian moon Europa), by using an original technique created - and, in time, dramatically improved - by the Lunar Explorer Italia Team.