Scientists envision sending a huge, 300-foot-long, nuclear-powered craft -- called JIMO, for Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter -- on a voyage to the Jovian neighborhood to spend up to five years circling the ice-encrusted moon called Europa, plus two others, Callisto and Ganymede, which also are covered with ice but are less likely to have inhabitable oceans. Even though landing the spacecraft on Europas surface would be extraordinarily difficult, mission scientists have not ruled it out. Europa is JIMOs principal target. Images from the Galileo mission nearly seven years ago revealed its surface as studded with icebergs, frozen ridges and dark streaks that seemed to indicate organic molecules rising through gigantic cracks from a deep ocean beneath.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/09/MNGON3J5RN1.DTL
