Jupiter's moon Europa has a saltwater ocean that exists deep beneath a thick ice shell, and might be habitable, scientists say.
A surprising connection between the satellite’s ice shell and the Greenland ice sheet on Earth has provided new insight: Europa's ocean may be habitable, according to a journal “Nature Communication”.
Scientists have been intrigued for more than 20 years by dramatic gashes on Europa's icy surface.
These double ridges have crests that can reach almost 1,000 feet (305 meters) high, with wide valleys between them. These features were first imaged by the NASA Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s, but researchers haven't been able to determine how they formed.
While studying the Greenland ice sheet using ice-penetrating radar observations, a team of researchers observed a similar double-ridge feature shaped like the letter M that's like a mini version of the one on Europa.
Life in Europa’s ocean?
Another recent study of Europa, this time involving computer simulations of its “chaos terrain” surface, was published in Geophysical Research Letters in March 2022. It suggests that oxygen could be hitching a ride on saltwater into its subsurface ocean.
Their results show that the amount of oxygen brought into Europa’s ocean could be similar to Earth’s oceans. Cue the possibility of aquatic aerobic organisms.
“Our research puts this process into the realm of the possible,” said lead researcher Marc Hesse, a professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences Department of Geological Sciences. “It provides a solution to what is considered one of the outstanding problems of the habitability of the Europa subsurface ocean.”
