Jupiter's Moon Europa
More details below:
Size & Distance
* 90 percent the size of Earth’s Moon
​
* diameter of 1,940 miles
​
* sunlight is about 25 times fainter at Jupiter and Europa than at Earth.
(click below for greater depth 3D image - press escape to return)
Jupiter's Moon Europa
Geology
* Europa’s water-ice surface is crisscrossed by long, linear fractures.
* Europa has a layer of ice and water on top of a rocky and metal interior,
* special type of magnetic field is being created (induced) within Europa by a deep layer of some electrically conductive fluid beneath the surface.
Atmosphere / Weather
* Europa’s surface is made of water ice and so it reflects 5.5 times the sunlight than our Moon does.
​
* It has only a tenuous atmosphere of oxygen.
Orbit & Rotation
* Europa orbits Jupiter every 3.5 days.
* Jupiter spins nearly upright so that the planet, as well as Europa and Jupiter’s other dozens of moons, do not have seasons as extreme as other planets do.
* Jupiter’s moons Io, Europa, and Ganymede are in what is called a resonance – every time Ganymede orbits Jupiter once, Europa orbits twice, and Io orbits four times.
​
* the moon’s near side feels Jupiter’s gravity more strongly than its far side. The magnitude of this difference changes as Europa orbits, creating tides that stretch and relax the moon’s surface.