Exploration
Much human knowledge of Europa has been derived from a series of flybys beginning in the 1970s. Pioneer 10 and 11 visited Jupiter in 1973 and 1974 respectively; these first closeup photos of Jupiter's largest moons produced by the Pioneers were fuzzy compared to later missions.
The two Voyager probes traveled through the Jovian system in 1979 providing more detailed images of Europa's icy surface. The images caused many scientists to speculate about the possibility of a liquid ocean underneath.
Starting in 1995, Galileo probe began a Jupiter orbiting mission that lasted for eight years, until 2003, and provided the most detailed examination of the Galilean moons to date. It included, Galileo Europa Mission and Galileo Millennium Mission, with numerous close flybys of Europa.
New Horizons imaged Europa in 2007, as it flew by the Jovian system while on its way to Pluto.
Read more about this topic: Europa (moon)
Famous quotes containing the word exploration:
“I call her old. She has one family
Whose claim is good to being settled here
Before the era of colonization,
And before that of exploration even.
John Smith remarked them as he coasted by....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Typography tended to alter language from a means of perception and exploration to a portable commodity.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“For women who do not love us, as for the “disappeared”, knowing that we no longer have any hope does not prevent us form continuing to wait. We live on our guard, on watch; women whose son has gone asea on a dangerous exploration imagine at any minute, although it has long been certain that he has perished, that he will enter, miraculously saved, and healthy.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)