Europa as it would look to the naked eye: Nasa remasters 90s image of Jupiter's icy moon to reveal it in unprecedented detail

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The fascinating surface of Jupiter's icy moon looms large in this newly-reprocessed image, which is exactly how Europa would appear to the human eye.

The image, remastered from one captured by Galileo in the late 1990s, shows the largest portion of the moon's surface at the highest resolution ever seen.

Long cracks crisscross the surface, interrupted by dramatic ridges where the surface ice crust has been broken up and re-frozen into new patterns.

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The fascinating surface of Jupiter's icy moon looms large in this newly-reprocessed image, which is exactly how Europa would appear to the human eye. The image, remastered from one captured by Galileo in the late 1990s, shows the largest portion of the moon's surface at the highest resolution ever seen. It has scale of one mile (1.6 km) per pixel

North on Europa is shown on the right, and the colours across the surface are associated with differences in geologic feature and location.

For instance, areas that appear blue or white contain relatively pure water ice, while reddish and brown areas include non-ice components in higher concentrations. It is not yet known what these components are, although Nasa has speculated that it may be a clay-like material.

The polar regions, visible at the left and right of this view, are noticeably bluer than the more equatorial latitudes, due to differences in ice grain size.

Galileo images taken through near-infrared, green and violet filters have been combined to produce this view, which has a scale of one mile (1.6 km) per pixel.

Nasa attempted to create a similar image in 2001 (pictured). This features colour profiles that had been increased to make contrast across the surface more obvious. The latest image, however, is more similar to what a human would see with the naked eye

Scientists claim that hidden beneath the icy surface of this incredible landscape is perhaps the most promising place in our solar system beyond Earth for life to exist.

They are eager to learn if the reddish-brown fractures, and other markings spattered across the surface, contain clues about the geological history of Europa and the chemistry of the global ocean that is thought to exist beneath the ice.

The Galileo mission found strong evidence that a subsurface ocean of salty water is in contact with a rocky seafloor.

Scientists believe the cycling of material between the ocean and ice shell could potentially provide sources of chemical energy that could sustain simple life forms.

It is believed that geysers spurting out of Jupiter’s moon may be an opportunity to spot alien life originating beneath the surface.

This was based on observations by the Hubble Space Telescope in December 2013 that saw water vapour being ejected from the moon, lending evidence to the existence of jets.

In September, Jupiter’s moon Europa has been found to have tectonic activity like Earth.

This was the first time this specific type of geological activity has been observed in the solar system other than on our planet.

The surface of Europa is slightly smaller than the Earth’s moon. Blocks on the surface are known to have shifted in the same way blocks on either side of the San Andreas Fault move past each other on Earth.

Earlier this year, scientists found evidence of plate tectonics on Jupiter's moon Europa. This conceptual illustration of the subduction process - where one plate is forced under another - shows how a cold, brittle, outer portion of Europa's ice shell moved into the warmer shell interior

This view an impact crater on Europa was created in 2013 using 3D stereo images taken by the Galileo spacecraft, combined with advanced image processing techniques. The crater has a diameter of about 11 miles (18km.) Young, well-preserved craters, like this Cilix crater, are rare on Europa's surface, where ongoing geologic activity is thought to disrupt most surface features over timescales of tens of millions of years