This image of the 3,160km-diameter Europa, taken at a distance of 677,00km, highlights the colour variation of the predominantly water-ice crust. It has been speculated that an ocean lies beneath the crust. Dark brown areas consist of material from the interior brought to the surface by meteorite impacts. The bright plains of the poles (shown as blue in this false-colour image) are possibly made up of coarse-grained ice. The dark lines are fractures in the surface, some more than 3,000km long. The bright feature containing a dark spot in the lower third of the image is a young impact crater, about 50km wide. It has been called Pwyll (after a Celtic god).
Source: Flight International
