Europa, the fourth largest of Jupiter’s moons, has high odds of being habitable. Past studies suggest that an ocean of liquid water lurks beneath Europa’s 15-mile-thick frozen crust. This extraterrestrial ocean contains salts that prevent water from turning into ice, which makes it ideal for life.
There is evidence of recent geological formations within Europa’s crust, including small, dark, dome-like features called lenticulae. Discovered by the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), lenticulae are thought to form above bodies of saline water half a mile to three miles beneath the surface.
To learn more about lenticulae, the researchers developed numerical simulations using images taken using NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, which explored Jupiter and its moons between the 1990s and 2000s. The spacecraft, launched in 1989, spotted lenticulae spattered across Europa’s surface.
Jupiter’s fourth largest moon may contain life-giving pockets of water by Jake Pearson The team of scientists has revealed that there are pockets of water inside the icy surface that can sustain life in Europe, the fourth largest moon of Jupiter.
A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States used satellite images of features of the Moon’s frozen surface to model their age and size.
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Scientists speculate that these features are pockets of liquid water within a 15-mile-thick ice sheet that lasted a few thousand years before it was renewed.
They said they could live in these pockets, which could detect NASA’s multi-overflight mission around Europe, launching in 2024, and could contain existing microbes.
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