Hubble image archive
Photo Composite of Suspected Water Plumes on Europa
This composite image shows suspected plumes of water vapor erupting at the 7 o'clock position off the limb of Jupiter's moon Europa. The plumes, photographed by NASA's Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, were seen in silhouette as the moon passed in front of Jupiter. H...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2016
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2016-33-3795-image
This composite image shows suspected plumes of water vapor erupting at the 7 o'clock position off the limb of Jupiter's moon Europa. The plumes, photographed by NASA's Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, were seen in silhouette as the moon passed in front of Jupiter. Hubble's ultraviolet sensitivity allowed for the features, rising over 100 miles above Europa's icy surface, to be discerned. The water is believed to come from a subsurface ocean on Europa. The Hubble data were taken on January 26, 2014. The image of Europa, superimposed on the Hubble data, is assembled from data from the Galileo and Voyager missions.
Credits
NASA, ESA, W. Sparks (STScI), and the USGS Astrogeology Science CenterImage Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Europa |
| Object Description | Moon of Jupiter |
| Distance | The position of Jupiter and Europa changes as they and Earth travel on their orbits through the solar system. Europa, orbiting Jupiter, was approximately 4.3 AU (400 million miles or 640 million kilometers) from Earth at the time of these observations. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | Data were provided by HST proposals , , and : W. Sparks (STScI), S. Deustua (STScI), K. Hand (JPL), M. McGrath (SETI Institute), and E. Bergeron and M. Cracraft (STScI). |
| Instrument | HST>STIS/MAMA |
| Exposure Dates | January 26, 2014 (Exposure Time: 2,023 seconds) |
| Filters | F25SRF2 (150nm UV) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image was made by HST's STIS MAMA instrument with the F25SRF2 filter (150nm UV). Color was added to the grayscale image using a blue color mapping. A separate grayscale image of Europa, produced using data from the NASA Galileo and Voyager missions, was superimposed to scale. Blue: F25SRF2 |
Downloads
Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov