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USA is the third largest country on Earth, while Europa is the sixth largest moon in our solar system. As a result it has a surface area of 30.9 million sq. km compared to USA’s 9.83million sq. km whereas the United States volume is far smaller at 393 million cubic km compared to Europa’s’ significantly larger 15.9 billion cubic km.
For a more detailed look at what makes both the United States and Europa as big as they are, continue reading as it will be covered more thoroughly below.
How Big Is USA?
The United States Of America has a total surface area of 9,833,516 sq. km, which makes it the third largest country in the world. It has a surface twice the area of the European Union’s land, and it is larger than the 107 smallest countries in the world combined.
The largest state in the USA is Alaska, possessing a surface area of 1,070,000 sq km; Texas and California follow at 430,000 sq km and 260,000 sq km, respectively.
These areas represent a flat two-dimensional area, but if we want to compare the size of the USA and Mars, then we need to know the volume.
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. Taking this average and multiplying it by the surface area of the USA, we can calculate that the rough volume of the USA is around 393,340,640 cubic kilometers.
This might sound like a lot, but it still falls short of a variety of other celestial objects where for example the Moon that has 21.9 billion cubic kilometers of volume. Even if we take Earth’s crust at its thickest (70 km), the total volume of the USA is still not comparable to most celestial bodies in outer space.
The actual crust will vary as USA is a diverse country with dramatic variances in terrain. This country’s three most significant mountain ranges are the Appalachians, the Rockies, and the Sierra Nevada which adds altitude to its overall size but, it isn’t so as to make a major difference in the surface or volume of the country as a whole.
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 3,100 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
Even if USA is the third biggest country on Earth, it is still a flat mass body whereas Europa is spherical in shape.
As a result, in regards to surface area Europa is 3 times bigger and In regards to volume it is around 80 times USA’s volume. Therefore, when all metrics are taken into account, Europa is far and away the bigger of the two bodies, even if USA has a larger diameter.
