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Image Advisory

Compression May Cause Folds in Europa's Surface
August 11, 2000

New analysis of images of Jupiter's moon Europa from NASA's Galileo spacecraft has identified surface undulations that scientists attribute to portions of the crust being squeezed. The key image is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/jovianmoons.

Dr. Louise M. Prockter, of Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Robert T. Pappalardo, of Brown University, report in today's edition of the journal Science their discovery of compression features on Europa's surface. Seeing signs of the crust being squeezed together in some places begins to set a balance for the many ridges and cracks on Europa that have been explained as signs of spreading and expansion.

A full press release about the new report is available at http://www.jhuapl.edu/public/pr/000810.htm.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages Galileo for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.