Europa (moon) - Discovery and Naming

Discovery and Naming

Europa was discovered in January 1610 by Galileo Galilei, and possibly independently by Simon Marius. The moon is named after a Phoenician noblewoman in Greek mythology, Europa, who was courted by Zeus and became the queen of Crete.

Europa, along with Jupiter's three other largest moons, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto, was discovered by Galileo Galilei in January 1610. The first reported observation of Io was made by Galileo Galilei on January 7, 1610 using a 20x-power, refracting telescope at the University of Padua. However, in that observation, Galileo could not separate Io and Europa due to the low power of his telescope, so the two were recorded as a single point of light. Io and Europa were seen for the first time as separate bodies during Galileo's observations of the Jupiter system the following day, January 8, 1610 (used as the discovery date for Europa by the IAU).

Like all the Galilean satellites, Europa is named after a lover of Zeus, the Greek counterpart of Jupiter, in this case Europa, daughter of the king of Tyre. The naming scheme was suggested by Simon Marius, who apparently discovered the four satellites independently, though Galileo alleged that Marius had plagiarized him. Marius attributed the proposal to Johannes Kepler.

The names fell out of favor for a considerable time and were not revived in general use until the mid-20th century. In much of the earlier astronomical literature, Europa is simply referred to by its Roman numeral designation as Jupiter II (a system introduced by Galileo) or as the "second satellite of Jupiter". In 1892, the discovery of Amalthea, whose orbit lay closer to Jupiter than those of the Galilean moons, pushed Europa to the third position. The Voyager probes discovered three more inner satellites in 1979, so Europa is now considered Jupiter's sixth satellite, though it is still sometimes referred to as Jupiter II.