Space

The storm and the satellite

Join Otherworlds artist Michael Benson as he explores one of his favourite images from the exhibition: the moon Europa photographed above Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

Europa and the Great Red Spot, one of Michael Benson's most 'powerful and unusual' images, was produced using data captured by the Voyager 1 probe on 3 March 1979.

It shows Europa, an ice-crusted satellite, floating in front of Jupiter's Great Red Spot - a giant storm that has raged on the planet for more than three centuries.

Europa is considered a leading potential home for extraterrestrial life. Data returned by NASA's Galileo Orbiter in the 1990s suggested that the moon's surface ice could conceal a body of liquid water potentially larger than all of Earth's oceans.

Discover more about the natural world beyond Earth's stratosphere.

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