Science, Space and Technology News 2024
Researchers at Purdue University have provided new insights into the thickness of Europa’s ice shell, suggesting it is at least 20 kilometers thick based on the analysis of impact craters. This discovery is pivotal for understanding the moon’s geological activity and its potential to support life.
Planetary physics can often feel like being in a snowball fight. When given an already-formed snowball, most people can leverage their experience and the texture of the snowball to determine its composition: whether it’s made of soft, packable snow or hard, icy snow.Europa is a rocky moon, home to saltwater oceans twice the volume of Earth’s, encased in a shell of ice. Scientists have long thought that Europa may be one of the best places in our solar system to look for nonterrestrial life.
Using data and images from the spacecraft Galileo, which studied Europa in 1998, Johnson analyzed the impact craters to decode truths about Europa’s structure. An expert in planetary physics and colossal collisions, Johnson has studied almost every major planetary body in the solar system. Scientists have long debated the thickness of Europa’s ice shell; no one has visited to measure it directly, so scientists are creatively using the evidence at hand: the craters on Europa’s icy surface.
That smooth, young surface means that craters are clearly defined, easier to analyze, and not very deep. Their impacts tell scientists more about the icy shell of the moon and the water ocean below, rather than conveying much information about its rocky heart.
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