Surface debris would be captured by an aerogel collector similar to the one that will used by the Stardust spacecraft to capture particles from a comet. Like Stardust, the Ice Clipper would return its samples to Earth for analysis. Other missions on the drawing board include Icepick, the Europa Ocean Observer , and the Europa Lander . So far only the Europa Orbiter has been funded. It will serve as an important precursor to future missions to Jupiter's enigmatic moon.
North is to the right.
An east-west running double ridge with a deep intervening trough cuts across older background plains. The numerous cracks and bands may indicate where the crust has pulled apart and sometimes allowed dark material from beneath the surface to well up. A computer generated three dimensional perspective shows that bright material, probably pure water ice, prevails at the ridge crests and slopes while most dark material is confined to lower areas such as valley floors. More information from the Planetary Photojournal . See also this image of Astypalaea Linea , a slip-strike fault on Europa similar to the San Andreas fault on our planet.