Smaller than our Moon, Europa, with its frozen liquid surface, forms with Io the most extraordinary and unique pair of moons in the solar system.
Devoid of any atmosphere and showing few impact craters, its main attraction is the inner ocean it most probably conceals beneath its icy crust.
A candidate for harboring microbial or other unknown forms of life in its interior oceanic mantle, Europa will remain a mystery for a long, long time.
MEADE 14" LX200, SBIG ST4020 CCD CAMERA, 0.2-second exposure in high resolution. Image development in CCDOps, Maxim DL4 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended.