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Flyover video of Jupiter’s Europa
- haolez 9y agoAmazing! I wonder if the colors are real or if they are inserted afterwards.
- ceejayoz 9y agoPer https://www.popsci.com/bigpic-europa-close-true-color https://www.popsci.com/bigpic-europa-close-true-color, pretty close to real colors.
- hliyan 9y agoI've always wondered this same thing ever since I was fascinated as a child by the lurid green photographs of Ganymede (Jupiter) and Enceladus (Saturn) from Voyager 2, only to later discover that they're false color images.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gmueckl 9y agoThe colors are a reconstruction. As far as I remember, no camera on Galileo had a set of color filters that would approximate human vision. They each had a set of selectable color filters on a wheel, which had very narrow spectral ranges, some even outside the human visual range. These filters were selected for scientific reasons (e.g. exploit spectral bands where certain materials have a particularly low or high reflectivity to help identify them). Any color images you see from this and similar missions are reconstructions: a full color image would need to be taken with the whole spectrum from about 400nm to 700nm, which is much wider than the color filers that are available. So what you see is based on some kind of reconstruction of the parts of the visual spectrum that is missing in the source data. I do not know how far you can take the reconstruction in practice. If you know the source illumination (it's the sun - easy), identify all the materials that are in the images successfully (hard) and know their reflection spectra (possible), you can in theory create realistic color impressions.
- JabavuAdams 9y agoAre those branching features sticking up above the ground, or are they carved into the ground. Can't tell which way the lighting is going.
- acqq 9y agoAbove. It's icy, wherever the ice cracks the new water goes through the crack, then freezes and as it takes more space than when fluid there is the protruding line.
- grondilu 9y agoDo we know what makes the reddish patches here and there?
- IntronExon 9y agohttps://www.nasa.gov/content/reddish-bands-on-europa https://www.nasa.gov/content/reddish-bands-on-europa blue-white terrains indicate relatively pure water ice, whereas the reddish areas contain water ice mixed with hydrated salts, potentially magnesium sulfate or sulfuric acid.
- telesilla 9y agoIt makes me think of the scenes of the last Star Wars movie on the salt flats with the red underlayers, perhaps they were inspired by Europa.
- js2 9y agoA little more about what you're seeing: Images of Europa from the Galileo spacecraft reveal a complicated terrain of grooved linear ridges and crustal plates which seem to have broken apart and rafted into new positions. That could indicate subsurface water or slush. In the image above, blue tints represent relatively old ice surfaces while reddish regions may contain material from more recent internal geological activity. The quote above is specifically referring to an image on the page from which I took the quote: https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/ast02oct98_1 https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/a... But I believe the stills which comprise the video fit the same overall description. The mission page is https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/in-depth/ https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/in-depth/ And I think the images can be found at https://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/volumes/galileo.html https://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/volumes/galileo.html
- some_account 9y agoIt's interesting that nobody doubts that these images are real. It's quite off topic for hacker news but I really encourage people to research nasa and the so called space exploration program.
- merubin75 9y agoALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS – EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.
- dreamfactored 9y agoCool to see all the streets, they must be enormous
- vatotemking 9y agoWhat are those highway-like structures?
- robin_reala 9y agoNew ice. It’s believed Europa has a subsurface liquid ocean. Tidal flexing from Jupiter causes the surface ice to crack and water wells up from the lower ocean and refreezes.
- deadprogram 9y agoThe real "Europa Report" here. So happy to be inspired yet again by the great work done at NASA.
- anc84 9y agoDirect link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHU35L3mtGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHU35L3mtGc
- TeMPOraL 9y agoThere's a near-vertical line in the terrain, starting at ~0:58 on the right hand side, and continuing through the remainder of the video. If that was in a game, I'd suspect a texturing or geometry problem (this is a small evidence that we live in a simulation). More seriously though, the linear features on the surface seem highly unusual; I wonder what's the geological explanation for them? EDIT: reading through other comments; apparently it's water freezing in cracks in the ice.
- savmac 9y agoALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS – EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.