When Elon Musk finally manages to land a human craft on one of the moons of Jupiter, the pictures that come back will probably look a lot like the landscape of a forlorn island sitting at 66 degrees north latitude in the Atlantic — Iceland.

On the south coast of the island alone, there are lunar-like landscapes of black volcanic pebbles and dust stretching for miles in all directions and flat top mesa-like mountains with waterfalls cascading down their faces like so many silver streaks. Plumes of steam rise from wounds in the earth around pools of boiling gray mud that burp like bolognese on a stovetop above a low flame, and vast expanses of lichen- and moss-covered pillow basalt cascade down the sides of mountains to cover nearby plains as far as the shoreline. One really has to see it to believe it.