If you could give the icy surface of Europa, Jupiter’s moon, a lick, it would taste like the sea. It is the conclusion reached by scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and NASA, who have just found fStrong evidence that a large ocean of liquid water exists under the icy surface of this Jovian satellite. And, what is more interesting, that it is in contact with the frozen surface and even exchanges chemicals with it. The results will be published in the journalAstronomical Journal.
New technologies have made it possible to identify in a way on the surface of Europe thepresence of a magnesium sulfate salt, a mineral called epsomite, which could be caused by oxidation of another mineral contained in the ocean. “Magnesium must not be on the surface of Europa, unless it comes from the ocean, which means that the salty water rises to the surface and also the elements on the surface, presumably, end up in the ocean water.” , has explained one of the authors of the work, Mike Brown. “Europa’s ice surface is now a window to a potentially habitable ocean,” stresses Brown, who assures that Europa’s ocean could cover its entire surface and be 100 kilometers thick. And that it would be enough to scrape a little on its icy surface to know what it contains, although the authors suspect that the composition of the ocean of Europa could be very similar to that of the salty seas of the Earth. “And if we have learned anything, it is that where there is water, there is usually life,” adds Kevin Hand of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The research results were obtained from aspectroscopy carried out by the pair of telescopes of the Keck Observatory, located on the top of the Mauna Kea volcano (Hawaii). With their ten meter diameter mirrors, these telescopes are the largest and most scientifically productive on the planet. They are equipped with adaptive optics to adjust the blurring effect of the Earth’s atmosphere, and have the Integral Field Infrared Spectrograph (OSIRIS), which, according to the experts, captures details that the telescopes of the Galileo mission were not able to obtain. NASA, which was sent to study Jupiter and its satellites between 1989 and 2003.
