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Australia is a good deal smaller than Jupiter’s moon, Europa, when landmass is considered coming in at around 7.6 million square kilometers, whereas Europa has 30.9 million square kilometers of land covered in a thick blanket of ice. In regards to volume Australia’s is 304 million cubic kilometers which is much smaller when compared to Europa’s 15.9 billion cubic kilometers.
For a more detailed look at each of these bodies continue reading as it will be covered more thoroughly below.
How Big Is Australia?
Australia is the sixth largest country in the world, following Russia, Canada, China, the USA, and Brazil. This commonwealth country comprises mainland Australia plus Tasmania and several other smaller islands; this land has a total area of 7,617,930 sq. km.
As for the overall volume of Australia, if we consider that Earth’s crust ranges from around 5 to 70 km in thickness. Generally, this crust is thicker under the continental land, which averages 40 km.
Therefore, by taking this average of 40km and multiplying it by the surface area of Australia, the volume would come up to roughly 304,717,200 cubic km.
The diameter of Australia, measuring from East to West, is 4000km, making it wider than the moon along with a large number of the smaller moons and planets like Pluto.
Within this expansive continent is a collection of mountainous regions and ranges. The largest is the Great Dividing Range or the Eastern Highlands, which stretch 3,500km parallel to the East Coast.
Within the Great Dividing range lie the Australian Alps, a mountain range that is host to some of the highest peaks in the country, including Mount Kosciuszko, which is 2,228m high.
Fifty kilometers to the west of Sydney are the Blue Mountains, which are named for the blue haze filling the surrounding area. While these mountains are impressive, Australia has surprisingly few notable peaks considering its size. Instead, it has vast expanses of desert known as the Australian outback.
How Big Is Europa?
Europa is a moon that orbits Jupiter and is the smallest of four Galilean moons to do so. It’s the sixth closest to Jupiter out of an astonishing 80 known moons and is the sixth largest moon in our solar system.
Europa was first discovered by the renowned Galileo Galilei back in 1610 and was named Europa in honor of the Phonecian mother of a mythological king of Crete named Minos. Europa was also supposedly the lover of Zeus, who himself was the Greek equivalent of the Roman deity Jupiter.
While Europa is only around 90% the size of earth’s moon, that still makes it a whopping 30, 900,000 kilometers squared. Europa has a diameter of 3,121.6 kilometers, and the majority of the planet is covered in a thick ice sheet that is up to 25 kilometers thick in place.
The total volume of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, is around 15.9 billion square cubic kilometers, and while this may sound like a huge number, it’s only around 0.015% of Earth’s volume, which comes in at approximately 1 Trillion cubic kilometers.
While Europa is but a fraction of the size of earth, it has been suggested by scientists that it could have twice as much water. Various researchers have even suggested that the vast and rich oceans of Europa may be the most promising place in our solar system to look for life.
Summary
As the sixth biggest country on Earth, it still far and away smaller than Europa, which is the sixth largest moon in our solar system. Other than in diameter where Australia is roughly 3,860 – 4,000km making it 700 – 900km bigger than Europa’s, it is much smaller in surface area and volume.
Europa’s surface area is roughly 4 times larger and its volume is around 50 times more than Australia’s, which makes sense considering Australia is a flat land mass while Europa is a spherical body.