Jupiter’s moon Europa is covered with an icy shell
NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology
Jupiter’s moon Europa may not be as ripe for life as we think. Beneath the icy shell is an ocean of water, but as we know, the frigid moon may lack the oxygen needed to support life.
On Europa, oxygen is produced when radiation hits the surface and breaks down the water ice there into its constituent parts hydrogen and oxygen. Models of this process suggest that oxygen production rates can range from 5 kilograms per second to more than 1000 kilograms per second.
Jamie Zareh Researchers at Princeton University made the new estimate using data from the Juno spacecraft, which flew just 353 kilometers above Europa’s surface in 2022. They discovered that oxygen is only produced at a rate of about 12 kilograms per second at the Earth’s surface. This corresponds to the lower bound of previous estimates.
“In a sense, the shell is like Europa’s lungs. It’s continually producing oxygen,” Zaray says. “That said, we can’t say what happens after the oxygen is produced at the surface. How much of the oxygen makes it into the ocean remains a question.”
But if less oxygen is produced in the first place, less oxygen will enter European waters. As a result, researchers may be less likely to discover organisms similar to those living on Earth.
One of the next steps is to figure out how much of that oxygen can penetrate through the alien moon’s icy shell. NASA’s European Clipper mission, scheduled to launch in October, should help solve that problem. It is hoped that this will allow researchers to measure the thickness of the ice and determine whether elements and compounds useful for life can pass through it.
topic:
- satellite/
- extraterrestrial life form
Source: www.newscientist.com
