Europa, which is slightly smaller than the Moon, circles Jupiter in half the time required by Ganymede. Its surface reflects about sixty percent of the incident sunlight, and the infrared spectrum shows prominent absorptions due to water ice; Europa appears to be almost entirely covered with ice. However, its color in the visible and ultraviolet part of the spectrum is not that of ice, so some other material must also be present. Io, innermost of the Galilean satellites, is the same size as our Moon. It orbits the planet in 42 hours, half the period of Europa. Like Europa, it has a very high reflectivity, but, unlike Europa, it has no spectral absorptions indicative of water ice. Before Voyager, identification of the surface material on Io presented a major problem to planetary astronomers. When the sizes and masses of these satellites were measured, astronomers could calculate their densities. The inner two, Io and Europa, both have densities about three times that of water—nearly the same as the density of the Moon, or of rocks in the crust of the Earth. Callisto and Ganymede have densities only half as large, far too low to be consistent with a rocky composition. The most plausible alternative to rock is a composition that includes ice as a major component. Calculations showed that if these satellites were composed of rock and ice, approximately equal quantities of each were required to account for the measured density. Thus the two outer Galilean satellites were thought to represent a new kind of solar system object, as large as one of the terrestrial planets, but composed in large part of ice. In 1973 the attention of astronomers was dramatically drawn to Io when Robert Brown of Harvard University detected the faint yellow glow of sodium from the region of space surrounding it. It seemed that this satellite had an atmosphere, composed of the metal sodium! Continued observations showed, however, that this was not an atmosphere in the usual sense of the word. The gas atoms were not bound gravitationally to Io, but continuously escaped from it to form a gigantic cloud enveloping the orbit of the satellite. Fraser Fanale and Dennis Matson of the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggested that bombardment of Io by high-energy particles from the Jovian Van Allen belts was knocking off atoms of sodium by a process called sputtering, releasing these atoms and allowing them to expand outward to form the observed sodium cloud. No one anticipated then that powerful volcanic eruptions on Io might also be contributing to this remarkable gas cloud. [Illustration: The Galilean satellites in orbit around Jupiter, along with the outer satellites, constitute a miniature solar system. Here they are shown relative to the size of Mercury and that of the Moon. The portrayal of their internal and external composition is based on theoretical models that preceded the Voyager flybys. [PC-17054AC]]