Professor Lewis Dartnell, Professor of Science Communication, wrote an article for BBC Sky at Night Magazine about the thickness of moon Europa’s icy crust.
The article discusses the debates that are held on the thickness of Europa’s outer layer, as “different scientists can look at the same images of surface features on Europa – mostly taken by the Galileo probe in the late 1990s – and come to completely opposing conclusions”. Professor Lewis Dartnell also discusses what lies between the moon’s crust, and if this affects its thickness.
Explaining Europa’s structure, Professor Dartnell said: “Europa is a very dynamic and fascinating moon. Its surface is only between 40 to 90 million years old (as determined by crater counts), which indicates that it is constantly renewing its face. The Europan surface is absolutely smothered with landforms that suggest ongoing geological processes: long ridges, large regions of broken-up ‘chaotic’ terrain, and smaller areas of uplift and circular pits. It’s also clear that underneath its hard-frozen surface Europa harbours a deep ocean of liquid water.”
Speaking on what lies beneath Europa’s crust, he also added: “What they found when analysing their data on the size-distribution for all the identified pits, uplifts and small chaotic regions is that there is a peak at around 5km-6km in diameter. Features smaller or larger than this are found to be less and less common. In fact, Singer and her team weren’t able to find any pits at all that were smaller than 3.3km in diameter, even in the highest-resolution images. This size-distribution, they say, goes against what you would expect to find if the Europan ice shell were thin enough for melt-through events to occur. So, Singer concludes that their analysis supports the interpretation that the surface features are produced by rising warm ice, and therefore that the Europan ice shell is likely thick rather than thin.”
Read the full article on the BBC Sky at Night website.
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