Europa

The surface of Europa, here imaged by the Voyager 2 probe in 1979, is criss-crossed by a complex network of low ridges.

In astronomy, fourth-largest moon of the planet Jupiter, diameter 3,140 km/1,950 mi, orbiting 671,000 km/417,000 mi from the planet every 3.55 days. It is a rocky body, probably with an iron core, covered by ice.

NASA's Galileo spacecraft began circling Europa in February 1997. One of the first discoveries from the data it sent back was that the ‘cracks’ covering the surface of the moon are in fact low ridges. These features lend credence to the idea that Europa possesses a hidden subsurface ocean.

Europa

A fresco of ‘Europa and the bull’, from a house in Pompeii, Italy, which was buried for over a thousand years under volcanic ash. Paintings, furniture, and other everyday items were discovered at Pompeii, giving a view of Roman life in the 1st century.

In Greek mythology, a princess carried off by Zeus under the guise of a white bull. She was the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor of Tyre; sister of Cadmus, founder of Thebes; and the personification of the continent of Europe.

Zeus abducted her while she played on the seashore, and crossed the sea to Crete where she bore him three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon. She married Asterius, king of Crete, who adopted her sons as his heirs; Zeus gave him the bronze giant Talos to guard his realm as recompense. After her death she was worshipped in Crete as Hellotis. In one tradition she was transformed into a bull and became the constellation Taurus.

Her son Minos eventually became the ruler of all Crete; Sarpedon, having fled, later became king of Lycia; and Rhadamanthys, after fleeing to Boeotia and marrying Alcmene (mother of the hero Heracles by Zeus), proved such a just ruler that he became a judge of the dead and ruler of Elysium, the paradise of the blessed dead.