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Europa

Also known as Jupiter II, Europa (moon)

Galilean moon of Jupiter

AI overview

Europa is one of Jupiter's four largest moons, discovered by Galileo in the early 1600s. It matters because scientists believe it has a subsurface ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust, making it a promising place to search for extraterrestrial life.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Instance of: regular moon
Part of: Galilean moons
Named after: Europa
Parent body: Jupiter
Radius: 1560.8
Mass: 47.986
Orbital period: 3.551181
Image: Europa-moon.jpg
Has use: colonization of Europa

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maintained by WikiProject: WikiProject Astronomy
Commons category: Europa (moon)
discoverer or inventor: Simon Marius
site of astronomical discovery: University of Padua
time of discovery or invention: 1610-01-08
topic's main category: Category:Europa (moon)
Commons gallery: Europa (moon)
orbital eccentricity: 0.009
albedo: 0.64
semi-major axis of an orbit: 671100
apparent magnitude: 5.29
orbital inclination: 1.791
density: 3.013
surface gravity: 1.314
temperature: 125
named by: Simon Marius
different from: Europe
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
apoapsis: 676938
periapsis: 664862

Sources (11)

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Encyclopedic overview

Apparent magnitude 5.29 (opposition) Atmosphere Surface pressure 0.1 μPa (10 bar)

Europa (/jʊˈroʊpə/ ) is the smallest and least massive of Jupiter's four Galilean moons. It is observable from Earth with common binoculars and is a planetary-mass moon, slightly smaller and less massive than Earth's Moon. Europa is an icy moon, and, of the three icy Galilean moons, the closest orbiting Jupiter. As a result, it exhibits a relatively young surface shaped by tidal heating.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Europa” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.