Where In The Universe #43

By Nancy Atkinson - February 18, 2009 at 4:04 PM UTC | Extragalactic
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It's Wednesday, so that means its time for another "Where In The Universe" challenge to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. See if you can name where in the Universe this image is from, and give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. Make your guess and post a comment. Check back sometime on Thursday to find the answer and see how you did (and yes, I'll try to remember to post the answer in a timely fashion this week!)

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below.

Pretty much everyone said this was Europa, and guess what, you're right! This highly detailed image of Jupiter's moon Europa was taken by the Galileo spacecraft. It's a processed image to show the differences in materials that cover the ice. The red linear features are cracks and ridges that stretch for thousands of kilometres across the moon's surface, resulting from tides raised by the pull of Jupiter. The mottled red terrain shows areas that have been disrupted and where ice blocks have moved around. The red material is thought to be a non-ice contaminant, such as salts brought up from the ocean thought to lie beneath Europa's icy shell. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

Great job everyone, and check back again next week for another WITU Challenge!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com