Starting at about 8 a.m., Earth began receiving the first closeup views of Europa. Europa “could be the most exciting satellite in the whole Jovian system,” said Larry Soderblom, “because it’s sort of the transition body between the solid silicate body, Io, and the ice balls, Ganymede and Callisto.” The icy crust looked as though it “had been ruptured all over—as though it was in pieces—just as though it had been broken in place and left there.” At 11:43 a.m., closest approach took place at a range of 206 000 kilometers. By this time the scientists were dazzled by what they had seen; some were calling Europa the most bizarre of all the Galilean satellites. In the Imaging Team viewing area, David Morrison compared Europa’s surface to “a cracked egg,” and Gene Shoemaker said, “It looks like sea ice to me.” When someone commented that the canal-like streaks were reminiscent of Mars, Torrence Johnson replied, “It looks like some pictures of Mars I’ve seen, but only on the walls of Lowell Observatory.” Another quipped, “Where is Percival Lowell, now that we need him!” There were to be two press conferences: one to present spacecraft and scientific results and one to celebrate the second successful flyby and to talk of new goals—Saturn, and perhaps Uranus. At the first conference, Ed Stone began by discussing the radiation Voyager was experiencing. One of Jupiter’s surprises was that the radiation environment was greater than had been anticipated, and this caused problems with the radio receiver. The receiver frequency was shifting “more rapidly than we had anticipated,” said Ray Heacock, “and we have not been able to keep an uplink continuously with the spacecraft.” The solution was to keep sending up commands at different frequencies until a frequency the spacecraft would accept was found. Just how bad were the radiation levels? Ed Stone commented, “The penetrating radiation at a given distance is more intense now at this distance than it was when Voyager 1 flew by.” From a preliminary analysis it seemed that, overall, Voyager 2 would still be subjected to lower radiation levels than Voyager 1 had been, but to higher levels than had been expected. In addition, Voyager 2’s radio receiver was much more sensitive. The higher than expected radiation intensity also led Voyager scientists to have the ultraviolet spectrometer shut off, since that instrument was also quite sensitive to the radiation.