How thick is the ice shell on Jupiter’s moon, Europa? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as a team of scientists revealed groundbreaking insights into Europa’s ice shell thickness and subsurface structure. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the interior composition of Europa and whether it could support life as we know it.
For the study, the researchers analyzed data obtained by NASA’s Juno spacecraft in 2022 when the spacecraft came within 220 miles (360 kilometers) of Europa’s surface. The goal of the study was to put constraints on the thickness of Europa’s ice shell, with the researchers noting current estimates range from 1.86 miles (3 kilometers) to more than 18.6 miles (30 kilometers). Since Europa is a prime target for the search for life beyond Earth, scientists hypothesize that cracks exist within the ice shell, enabling the delivery of nutrients from the surface to the subsurface liquid water ocean. In the end, the researchers estimated the average thickness of Europa’s ice shell is approximately 18 miles (29 kilometers).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/K. Kuramura
“The 18-mile estimate relates to the cold, rigid, conductive outer layer of a pure water ice shell,” said Dr. Steve Levin, who is a Juno project scientist and lead author of the study. “If an inner, slightly warmer (convective) layer also exists, which is possible, the total ice shell thickness would be even greater. If the ice shell contains a modest amount of dissolved salt, as suggested by some models, then our estimate of the shell thickness would be reduced by about three miles.”
This study comes as NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is currently en route to Europa with the goal of ascertaining whether the small ocean world, which is estimated to have more than double the liquid water as Earth’s oceans, could support life as we know it, or even as we don’t know it.
What new insight into Europa’s ice shell and interior structure will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Nature Astronomy, EurekAlert!