Galileo was the only spacecraft to fly by the icy moon more than once and was not equipped with the right instruments to study Europa in detail.
A real water world!īut these earth-shattering measurements are only estimates based from the limited information scientists have for Europa. 'And that ocean could be under just a few kilometers of ice.'Įuropa's ocean could be as much as two to three times larger than all of Earth's oceans combined and reach up to 62 miles deep - 10 times deeper than the deepest oceanic regions on Earth. 'What makes Europa exceptional is that it has had a global ocean probably for the last 4 billion years,' Vance said. But it wasn't the surface that intrigued scientists like Vance - it was the compelling evidence Galileo found for a vast and deep liquid ocean underneath the surface. In the 1990s, NASA's Galileo spacecraft flew by Europa a dozen times, snapping pictures of the vibrant surface.
The blocks on Europa's surface are thought to have broken apart in the past and moved into new positions, which suggests the presence of water beneath the surface. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
