History, Naming, and Discovery of Europa: Jupiter’s Mysterious Icy Moon
Europa, along with Jupiter’s three other large moons—Io, Ganymede, and Callisto—was discovered by Galileo Galilei on 8 January 1610, and possibly independently by Simon Marius. On 7 January, Galileo observed Io and Europa together using a 20×-magnification refracting telescope at the University of Padua. However, the low resolution of the telescope could not distinguish the […]