Scientists said they are one step closer to understanding Europa, a moon orbiting Jupiter that is widely considered the leading candidate for alien life forms within the solar system.
Salt water inside Europa
Europa is thought to contain saline groundwater hidden by a thick outer crust of ice, but according to a new study looking at the moon’s topology, a particular topographic feature called the “double rim” might indicate liquid water much closer to the surface than previously thought.
“Our results indicate that shallow liquid waters are spatially and temporally present everywhere across the Europa cryosphere,” states the study, which was published this week.
Scientists estimate that the waters around Europe are regarding 90 miles deep, where the gravitational pull of other transiting moons causes Europa to gently move and flex, helping it generate its own heat.
However, the salty liquid is hidden under an icy crust that researchers estimate to be regarding 18 miles deep, and in order to investigate the ocean depths, any spacecraft that landed on Europa would need to be drilled, or so they thought.
The double spurs can indicate the presence of liquid water barely a kilometer and a half below the surface, and there is an abundant geographical feature that appears as a pair of cracks in the surface of the moon, each parallel crest hundreds of miles long, up to 350 meters high, separated by a valley regarding a kilometer wide One metre, these double bulges also appear in one place on Earth, which is Greenland.
In a recent pass, a NASA satellite captured images of a smaller version of a double ridge similar to the one crisscrossing the surface of Europa. The researchers found that Greenland’s double ridge formed when liquid water rose from below and froze once more, as the ice expanded. Which pushed the edges up.
“Using surface elevation data and radar sounding data, it is shown that this double edge was formed by successive refreezing, pressure and shallow-water threshold breaking within the ice sheet,” says the study by three researchers at Stanford University.
Does the moon contain liquid water?
The authors suggested that if Europa’s double edges formed in the same way, they would indicate the presence of liquid water on the Moon regarding one kilometer below the surface.
If this mechanism controls the formation of Europa’s double spurs, the widespread prevalence of double ridges at the surface means that liquid water was and remains a diffuse feature within the ice crust’s fragile cover, suggesting that shallow water processes may be more dominant in Shaping Europa dynamics, surface morphology, and habitability than previously thought.
Source: UPI