Europa Jupiter’s moon Europa is slightly smaller than Earth’s moon. Its surface is smoot
Europa Jupiter’s moon Europa is slightly smaller than Earth’s moon. Its surface is smooth and bright, consisting of water ice crisscrossed by long, linear fractures. Like our planet, Europa is thought to have an iron core, a rocky mantle and an ocean of salty water beneath its ice crust. Unlike Earth, however, this ocean would be deep enough to extend from the moon’s surface to the top of its rocky mantle. Being far from the sun, the ocean’s surface would be globally frozen over. While evidence for this internal ocean is quite strong, its presence awaits confirmation by a future mission.Europa orbits Jupiter every 3.5 days and is locked by gravity to Jupiter such that the same hemisphere of the moon always faces the planet. Because Europa’s orbit is slightly stretched out from circular, or elliptical, its distance from Jupiter varies, creating tides that stretch and relax its surface. The tides occur because Jupiter’s gravity is just slightly stronger on the near side of the moon than on the far side, and the magnitude of this difference changes as Europa orbits. Flexing from the tides supplies energy to the moon’s icy shell, creating the linear fractures across its surface. If Europa’s ocean exists, the tides might also create volcanic or hydrothermal activity on the seafloor, supplying nutrients that could make the ocean suitable for living things.Image credit: NASA/JPL, Galileo, Voyager & Processed by Kevin M. GillCredit: NASA -- source link
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