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NASA revisits Europa with modern image-processing software

Do attempt landings here, says space agency, it looks VERY interesting

NASA has re-issued a famous image of Jovian moon Europa, after subjecting it to “modern image processing techniques” for the first time.

The 1.6km-per-pixel, 2300x1700 image is actually a composite of several captured by the Galileo probe during the craft's first and fourteenth orbits through the Jupiter system, in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Previous versions were “a mosaic with lower resolution and strongly enhanced color”.

NASA's new Europa photo

NASA's new view of Europa. Link to native 2300x1700 version below.

This time around, NASA has combined “Images taken through near-infrared, green and violet filters”, corrected them for “light scattered outside of the image, to provide a color correction that is calibrated by wavelength.”

“ Gaps in the images have been filled with simulated color based on the color of nearby surface areas with similar terrain types.”

The images have also been re-arranged “into a realistic color view of the surface that approximates how Europa would appear to the human eye.” The result, the agency says, is a better look at features so that “areas that appear blue or white contain relatively pure water ice, while reddish and brownish areas include non-ice components in higher concentrations.”

“The polar regions, visible at the left and right of this view, are noticeably bluer than the more equatorial latitudes, which look more white. This color variation is thought to be due to differences in ice grain size in the two locations.”

NASA's released the image to accompany a new video explaining the theory that a liquid ocean lurks beneath the moon's icy crust, making it a very fine exploration prospect as humanity searches for habitable worlds beyond our own. And perhaps inhabitants of such worlds.

The full 2300x1700 image can be seen here or on NASA's site as a 2300x1700, 11MB TIFF. ®

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