What can the surface activity on Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, teach scientists about its subsurface ocean? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated how specific regions of Europa’s surface could provide insight into external and internal processes influencing the small moon. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the complex processes on Europa and whether it contains the ingredients for life as we know it.
For the study, the researchers used NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to obtain near infrared data on Europa’s surface with the goal of ascertaining the interaction between external processes like charged particles from Jupiter’s magnetic field and internal processes like Europa’s subsurface ocean. This study builds on past research that lacked the necessary instruments to conduct a thorough analysis which JWST possesses.
In the end, the data revealed an increased likelihood that Europa harbors a subsurface ocean, specifically with its unique surface features called chaos terrain, which are chunks of ice that have shifted from their original position and refreeze in place. The researchers focused their attention on the Tara and Powys Regiones, which are located in the southern hemisphere of Europa. They found that crystalline ice, which forms hexagonal patterns when frozen, are exposed on the surface along with amorphous ice, which is crystalline ice that has been bombarded by charged particles from Jupiter's magnetic field.
Credit: Southwest Research Institute
“We think that the surface is fairly porous and warm enough in some areas to allow the ice to recrystallize rapidly,” said Dr. Richard Cartwright, who is a spectroscopist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and lead author of the study. “Also, in this same region, generally referred to as a chaos region, we see a lot of other unusual things, including the best evidence for sodium chloride, like table salt, probably originating from its interior ocean. We also see some of the strongest evidence for CO2 and hydrogen peroxide on Europa. The chemistry in this location is really strange and exciting.”
This study comes as NASA’s Europa Clipper is currently en route to Europa with an estimated arrival date of April 2030. Once there, Clipper will conducted dozens of orbits of the small moon, each coming closer and closer to its surface, with the goal of ascertaining the potential habitability of Europa and its subsurface ocean.
What new discoveries about Europa’s surface will scientists 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: The Planetary Science Journal, EurekAlert!
