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Europa's Leading Hemisphere

March 26, 1998
This image of Europa's leading hemisphere was obtained by the solid state imaging system onboard NASA's Galileo spacecraft during its seventh orbit of Jupiter on April 3, 1997.

This image of Europa's leading hemisphere was obtained by the solid state imaging (CCD) system on board NASA's Galileo spacecraft during its seventh orbit of Jupiter. In the upper left part of the image is Tyre, a multi-ringed structure that may have formed as a result of an ancient impact. Also visible are numerous lineaments that extend for over 1000 kilometers. The limb, or edge, of Europa in this image can be used by scientists to constrain the radius and shape of the satellite. North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the right. The image, centered at -40 latitude and 180 longitude, covers an area approximately 2000 by 1300 kilometers. The finest details that can be discerned in this picture are about 6.6 kilometers across. The images were taken on April 3, 1997 at 17 hours, 42 minutes, 19 seconds Universal Time when the spacecraft was at a range of 31,8628 kilometers.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.

This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.

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