Why Europa sea might just be the perfect place to find life beyond Earth

A high resolution image of the Europa, the Jupiter Icy Moon, has been released by NASA. The new image following the lowest quality released in 2001 is showing the stunning diversity of Europa's surface geology. Long, linear cracks and ridges crisscross the surface, interrupted by regions of disrupted terrain where the surface ice crust has been broken up and re-frozen into new patterns.

Color variations across the surface are associated with differences in geologic feature type and location. For example, areas that appear blue or white contain relatively pure water ice, while reddish and brownish areas include non-ice components in higher concentrations. The polar regions, visible at the left and right of this view, are noticeably bluer than the more equatorial latitudes, which look more white. This color variation is thought to be due to differences in ice grain size in the two locations.

Here you can find the full resolutions Europa Image.
To do this, NASA used images collected by Galileo on its 1st and 14th orbits through the Jovian system in 1995 and 1998. It then combined photos that were taken through near-infrared, green and violet filters to create the image above.

In addition to the reworked photo, NASA has just released this video of why Europa and its ocean (which theories say might be 10 times deeper than our own) might be ripe for life and future exploration, and why astronomers consider it a "game changer."

Video. The Ocean World of Europa. Signs of Extraterrestrial Life