Jupiter's moon Europa is considered by the scientific community to be one of the most likely places in the solar system where extraterrestrial life is most likely to occur. Previously, both voyager and Galileo probes had visited Europa and confirmed Europa's presence in the subsurface ocean.
On the evening of April 19, the international academic journal Nature Communication published a new study online. Researchers from Stanford University believe that based on data from the Greenland ice sheet, there may be very shallow liquid water on Europa. This result may add new insights to the geophysical processes of Europa's formation.
The team mentioned that in addition to some simulations, the data collected by the Voyager and Galileo probes also showed that there may be an ocean of liquid water on Europa beneath an ice shell 20-30 kilometers thick. However, understanding the structure and change of this ice shell is important for understanding the geophysical processes by which Europa formed.
Researchers at Stanford University studied a surface landform called double ridges (nearly symmetrical pairs of ridges with shallow troughs on the sides), which are distributed in each area of Europa, some hundreds of kilometers long.
Comparison of europa and double-ridged surface images on Earth.
The researchers found a similar double ridge in the ice sheet in northwestern Greenland, with the same geometry as the double ridge on Europa. To understand the formation of the Greenland Double Ridge, they used surface elevation and radar detection data to find that it was formed after a shallow body of water in the ice sheet was re-frozen, pressurized, and broken.
The process of bispine formation.
The team believes that if this is also the formation of Europa's double ridge, then it may symbolize the presence of very shallow liquid water in Europa's ice shell. They conclude that the results of this study suggest that the effects of shallow water bodies on Europa's surface morphology may be greater than previously thought.
Thesis link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29458-3