Ashley Strickland, CNN
Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is an ocean world beneath a thick icy crust, where snow rises.
Underwater snow forms in the world’s oceans, migrates through water, and clings to submerged canyons and upside-down icebergs, according to a new study. This same phenomenon occurs under Earth’s ice shelves. It may be the way Europa makes ice shells.
The findings, published Monday in the journal Astrobiology, suggest that Europa’s ice crust may not be as salty as scientists first thought. Understanding the salinity of the ice crust is crucial as engineers work to assemble NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, which is preparing to launch to Europa in October 2024.
Europa Clipper will use ice-piercing radar to look beneath its shell to determine if lunar oceans are potentially habitable for life. Predictions about shell composition are important because salinity within the ice shell can affect the depth at which radar can penetrate the ice shell.
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Clues about the ice shell could also help scientists determine more about Europa’s oceans, their salinity, and their potential to harbor life.
Europa’s ice shell is 10 to 15.5 miles (15 to 25 km) thick and may lie above oceans estimated to be 40 to 90 miles (60 to 150 km) deep.
“When we’re exploring Europa, we’re interested in the salinity and composition of the sea because it governs its potential habitability and the types of organisms that might live there. Because it’s one,” said lead study author Natalie. Wolfenbarger, a Ph.D. student researcher at the University of Texas Geophysical Laboratory (UT Jackson School of Geosciences), said: .
Wolfenbarger is also a graduate student affiliate member of the Europa Clipper scientific team. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin are developing an ice-penetrating radar for spacecraft.
Previous studies have suggested that Europa’s ocean, closest to its shell, has temperatures, pressures, and salinities similar to the water beneath Antarctica’s ice shelves.
Researchers have studied two ways water freezes under ice shelves on Earth: condensed ice and Frasilian ice.
What’s the difference? Condensed ice actually grows from beneath the ice shelf, while Fresil ice drifts through flaky, supercooled seawater before settling beneath the ice shelf.
Both of these types result in ice that is less salty than seawater. Applying this data to the age and size of Europa’s ice shell, the researchers predicted, the water would become even less salty.
Frazil ice may be the most common type of ice on Europa, and this could make the ice shell much purer than previously believed. Frazil ice retains only a fraction of the salt present in seawater. The purity of an ice shell can affect its strength, ice tectonics, and heat flow through the shell.
“Using Earth, we can assess the habitability of Europa, measure the exchange of impurities between the ice and the ocean, and understand where water lies in the ice,” said co-author of the study. Yes, says Donald Blankenship, senior research scientist at the University of Texas Geophysical Laboratory. , in a statement. He is the principal investigator of Europa’s Clipper ice-penetrating radar installation.
This finding may suggest that Earth can be used as a model to better understand the habitability of Europa.
“This paper opens up entirely new possibilities for thinking about the ocean world and how it works,” said Steve Vance, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement. We are opening up,” he said. “This lays the groundwork for how Europa prepares for his Clipper ice analysis.” Vance was not involved in the research.
Meanwhile, work is underway on the core of the Europa Clipper spacecraft at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory spacecraft assembly facility.
The 10-foot (3-meter) high, 5-foot (1.5-meter) wide core is the centerpiece of the clean room where NASA teams assembled spacecraft such as the Galileo, Cassini, and Mars rovers.
Flight hardware and scientific instruments are expected to be installed on the spacecraft by the end of the year. Engineers then put the spacecraft through a series of tests during the lead-up to launch.
Europa Clipper will arrive at Jupiter’s moon in April 2030. After about 50 planned Europa flybys, the rover will eventually transition from her 1,700 miles (2,735 kilometers) altitude to just 16 miles (25 kilometers) above the lunar surface.
The-CNN-Wire
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