http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110130.html
Europa: Phases (Jan. 30 2011)
All of these phases of the moon look familiar to what we usually see in the night sky except for the the fact that this is Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. The robot spacecraft Galileo captured these images during one of its mission in which it orbited Jupiter from 1995 - 2003. The fluctuations that are visible are plains of bright ice, cracks that run to it's horizon, and dark patches that are believed to contain both ice and dirt. You can see raised terrain particularly visibly near the terminating end, where it casts shadows. Europa is nearly the same size as Earth's Moon, but much smoother, showing few highlands or large impact craters. Evidence and images from the Galileo spacecraft indicate that liquid oceans might exist below the icy surface which I find astounding and hope will allow them to find some new life form or elements. To test this speculation that the seas hold life, NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) have started preliminary development of the Europa Jupiter System Mission, a spacecraft proposed for launch around 2020 that will extensively explore Jupiter and in particular Europa. If the surface ice is thin enough, there is the possibility of a future mission that might drop hydrobots to burrow into the oceans and search for life.
This is an artist's rendition of what the hydrobots might appear.
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