Scientists have been researching significant cracks on Europe’s surface for more than twenty years. The ridges of the fissures are over three hundred meters high and are divided by wide valleys. They were first spotted by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s. To this day, however, it is uncertain how they originated.
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While studying the Greenland Glacier, scientists have noticed cracks, similar in shape to those in Europe, only much smaller.
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Influence of water on the topography of the ice layer
Equipment on board aircraft helps researchers study the Earth’s polar regions and monitor changes in glaciers and ice sheets that could affect sea levels. They also look for surface water lakes, drainage canals and subglacial lakes.
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Operation IceBridge is a NASA mission that collected data on the altitude of the ice sheet from 2015 to 2017. She revealed that a crack in the Greenland Glacier had formed after the ice had broken around the water, which froze again inside the ice sheet. The pressure of the water pocket caused the ridges of the crack to rise.
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This has led scientists to question whether the same thing has happened in Europe. This would mean that there would be pockets filled with water under the ice sheet, which could create a potentially habitable environment beneath this month’s otherwise inhospitable surface.
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The surface of the moon is constantly changing
Clouds of steam rise through cracks in an ice shell tens of kilometers thick. This layer of ice could be a place where the subsurface ocean and nutrients important for the existence of life mix.
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“It was the first time scientists could observe a similar phenomenon on Earth and observe the subsurface processes that led to the formation of ridges,” said Gulphysicist Culberg.
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Thanks to the extensive data the team has collected on the Greenland ice sheet, they can estimate how Europe’s surface will change in the future.
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Temperature, chemistry and pressure are different in Europe than in Greenland, so the team wants to explore how water pockets work on this moon of Jupiter.
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Europa is the target of two upcoming missions, the European Space Agency’s JUICE (short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) and NASA’s Europa Clipper. The clipper will carry radar penetrating the ice, similar to what they used to study the Greenland Glacier. They want to collect subsurface images of Europe’s ice shell.
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The moon Europa is one of the potential locations where extraterrestrial life could be found. Other possible candidates for microbial life in the solar system are the planet Mars and Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
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