Pasadena - the Galileo spacecraft made its closest pass of Jupiter's frozen moon, Europa, yesterday as part of a mission to discover if there cou8ld be liquid oceans beneath its icy crust.
Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said signals received at 4.49 a.m. (11.49 GMT) showed Galileo swooped to just 125 miles (200 km) from the surface of the Jovian moon.
It was the first major achievement of the Galileo Europa mission, which began on December 8th following the end of Galileo's two year primary mission. The Europa mission will study the icy moon in detail in hopes of shedding more light on the prospect that there may be liquid oceans beneath the surface.
