Where In The Universe Challenge #93

By Nancy Atkinson - February 24, 2010 at 11:41 AM UTC | Observing
Where-in-the-Universe-93.jpg

Its time for another "Where In The Universe" challenge, and this one is actually on time this week! The WITU challenge will test your visual knowledge of the cosmos, and this week's image was submitted by UT reader Rob Bowman. Rob is hoping to stump everyone this week, but try to guess/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, but please no links or extension explanations to the answer. Check back sometime on Thursday to find the answer and see how you did. Good luck!

UPDATE: The answer is now posted below.

This is a composite image of part of Jupiter's moon, Europa, which shows the distribution of ice and minerals for the structure named Tyre. The image was created with data from the Galileo spacecraft's Solid State Imaging (SSI) camera and the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS). Tyre, the circular feature, is 140 kilometers in diameter (about the size of the island of Hawaii) and is thought to be the site where an asteroid or comet impacted Europa's ice crust.

Lots of correct answers! Great job everyone, and thanks again to Rob Bowman for submitting the image. Check back 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