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Rugged Terrain on Europa in 3-D Stereo

Dec. 7, 1998
This three dimensional effect is created by superimposing images of Jupiter's moon, Europa, which were taken from two slightly different perspectives. The images were taken by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

This three dimensional effect is created by superimposing images of Jupiter's moon, Europa, which were taken from two slightly different perspectives. When viewed through red (left eye) and blue (right eye) filters as with red-blue glasses, the product shows variations in height of surface features.

This stereo view is of an area just southeast of the Tyre multi-ring structure on Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The circular to oval shaped pits that contain dark material are secondary craters formed by debris which was tossed from the site of the impact which formed Tyre, then reimpacted some distance away. Ridges appear as high-standing features and troughs as low-standing features. Regions of chaotic terrain also have topographic expression; for example, the one with large rafts and blocky material (upper right) appears lower than the surrounding terrain.

North is to the top of the image and the sun illuminates the surface from the lower left. The stereo image is in an orthographic projection, centered at 14 degrees north latitude and 130 degrees west longitude, and covers an area approximately 29 by 71 kilometers (18 by 44 miles). The resolution is about 30 meters (100 feet) across. The images were taken on May 31, 1998 at a range of approximately 4192 kilometers (2620 miles) kkby the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission or 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 URLhttp://solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo/. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.

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