In 1979, Europa was visited by the two
Voyager spacecrafts—
Voyager 1 and
Voyager 2—which returned detailed images of Europa for the first time. Images of Europa's surface by the Voyager probes led scientists to divide its surface into lineated bright plains and mottled terrain. Later, in 1996, the
Galileo orbiter began close observations of Europa and its surface. Higher resolution imagery revealed that many regions of mottled terrain are composed of chaotic, polygonal blocks termed
chaos terrain. Conarama Chaos was imaged on
Galileos E6 orbit on 20 February 1997 at a resolution of up to per pixel, and images at a resolution of up to per pixel were taken on 16 December 1997. Conamara Chaos is named after
Connemara, a rugged region in western
Ireland named after Conmac. The name was adopted by the
International Astronomical Union's (IAU) Working Group for Planetary Systems Nomenclature (WGPSN) in a meeting held on 20 August 1997, during which the descriptor term
Chaos was also introduced. ==References==