Scientists are confident that Europa probably has twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans. Jupiter’s powerful gravitational field constantly pulls on Europa, which orbits its parent planet every three and a half days, squeezing and bending the moon’s interior and generating heat through tidal forces. These forces could drive hydrothermal vents where Europa’s ocean floor meets the moon’s rocky interior.
Cynthia Phillips, a planetary geologist at JPL and a staff scientist on the Europa Clipper project, said this includes Europa, Earth, and Saturn’s small moon Enceladus (which also has a buried ocean and a spewing plume). It is said to distinguish it from other celestial bodies in the solar system.
“On these worlds, you have an ocean layer on top of the rock layer. That’s important because that’s what we have on Earth, and that ocean layer is at the bottom of Earth’s oceans where it comes into contact with the rock. ,” she said. All kinds of interesting chemical reactions can occur and hydrothermal systems can occur. ”
Scientists’ findings suggest that the interior of Jupiter’s moon Europa may be composed of an iron core surrounded by a rocky mantle and in direct contact with the ocean beneath an icy crust. I am doing it. A new study modeled how internal heat fuels underwater volcanoes.
Credit: NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology/Michael Carroll
Scientists’ findings suggest that the interior of Jupiter’s moon Europa may be composed of an iron core surrounded by a rocky mantle and in direct contact with the ocean beneath an icy crust. I am doing it. A new study modeled how internal heat fuels underwater volcanoes.
Credit: NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology/Michael Carroll
At the bottom of Earth’s oceans, like Europa, life must rely on energy sources other than the sun. Hydrothermal vents in Earth’s oceans provide heated environments teeming with primitive life forms, even in harsh conditions at depths of several miles.
“We don’t expect anything like that from fish or whales, but we’re interested in whether Europa can support simple life, single-celled organisms,” Pappalardo said.
Of course, European clippers can’t dig tens of miles to reach these theoretical vents. Scientists need to estimate its existence from other data. And direct detection of life on Europa will have to wait for future missions. Scientists do not think Europa’s surface could support life because it is exposed to extreme radiation from Jupiter’s magnetosphere.
“If there is life in Europe in this habitable environment that we’re investigating, we won’t be able to see it because it’s under the ocean,” Blatty said. , organic chemicals that are the precursors of life. There are dream things like DNA and RNA that you can observe, but you don’t expect to see them. ”
