Europa

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Europa
Base Data
Radius	78 kilometres
Gravity	1.314 m/s2
Timewarp Height	5,000 meters
Color	RGB: 191, 207, 217 HEX: #BFCFD9
Atmospheric Data
Atmospheric height	15 kilometres
Atmospheric density	0
Curve	NaN
Orbit Data
Semi-major axis	33545 kilometres
SOI radius	742.1 km

Europa is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the second-closest to the planet after Io. It is smaller than the Moon and it is included in the Planets Expansion DLC along with Jupiter and the rest of the Galilean moons.

Landing on Europa may be a little difficult because of the high delta v requirement to get there, but it gets easy if you use some fuel-efficient methods, such as gravity assists from the moons, to get there.

What to do on Europa

Europa's proximity to Jupiter and low gravity makes orbital insertions very hard and fuel-consuming. Try positioning in an orbit that is above or below Europa's orbit to lessen the fuel needed to get into Europa orbit.

There are some interesting activities to do on Europa and drilling under the icy surface is one of them.

Europa's atmosphere

Atmosphere

Europa’s atmosphere is a faint whitish-blue glow that unlike the other planets does not cause aerodynamic drag. Trying to deploy a parachute yields the message Cannot deploy parachute in a vacuum since Europa has practically no atmosphere.

Europa's terrain

Terrain

Europa's terrain has one of the smoothest terrains in the game, along with Earth. The terrain is mostly flat with a few hills emerging out of the surface. The hills are often not too tall and not too steep. They contain smaller hills and even smaller ones. The surface doesn't include any craters.

Europa’s low surface gravity and relatively smooth surface provide easy landing opportunities unlike the other Galilean moons. Surface bases are easy to set up, and rovers have no problem driving except for tipping due to the low gravity. Try to make the rover heavier or use several ion thrusters to push it down to the surface to prevent tipping.

Gallery

Europa as seen from a low orbit.

An early sneak peek of Europa, showing surface features (such as lineae, surface ice and craters).

Another sneak peak of Europa with the surface features

A failed mission to Europa

Trivia

• The atmosphere texture can be used by using Atmo_Europa. It is commonly used for a nighttime Earth atmosphere texture.
• Europa is named after a lover of Zeus, who turned into a white bull and swam her to the island of Crete.
• The dark streaks, or lineae (singular: linea), on Europa’s surface are caused by tidal flexing caused by Jupiter and simple plate tectonics in the icy crust.
• Europa is so cold that its surface ice is as hard as granite.
• Europa’s subsurface ocean is about 100 kilometers thick in real life which allows its mantle to spin independently from its crust.
• Europa stars as the prime location of the popular Spaceflight Simulator YouTube series by Swin City “Mission to Europa”.
• In real life, Europa has a very thin atmosphere that barely causes drag. It is mainly composed of oxygen.