Jovian Europa Orbiter was an ESA Cosmic Vision concept study from 2007. G.G. The ice-covered world may have liquid water, energy, and organic compounds – all three of the ingredients necessary for life to survive. There are few craters on Europa, because its surface is tectonically too active and therefore young. Such a process could render Europa's ocean as oxygenated as our own within just 12 million years, allowing the existence of complex, multicellular lifeforms.[167]. A new model from NASA scientists supports the theory that the interior ocean in Jupiter's moon Europa would be able to sustain life. The largest impact structures are surrounded by concentric rings and appear to be filled with relatively flat, fresh ice; based on this and on the calculated amount of heat generated by Europan tides, it is estimated that the outer crust of solid ice is approximately 10–30 km (6–19 mi) thick,[70] including a ductile "warm ice" layer, which could mean that the liquid ocean underneath may be about 100 km (60 mi) deep. For the spaceship in the 1960s television series Lost in Space, see, Europa's trailing hemisphere in approximate natural color. [18] The estimated eruption rate at Europa is about 7000 kg/s[103] compared to about 200 kg/s for the plumes of Enceladus. [14] The predominant model suggests that heat from tidal flexing causes the ocean to remain liquid and drives ice movement similar to plate tectonics, absorbing chemicals from the surface into the ocean below. [99][98] The image suggests the plume may be 200 km (120 mi) high, or more than 20 times the height of Mt. [65], Work published by researchers from Williams College suggests that chaos terrain may represent sites where impacting comets penetrated through the ice crust and into an underlying ocean. As Europa moves slightly away from Jupiter, Jupiter's gravitational force decreases, causing Europa to relax back into a more spherical shape, and creating tides in its ocean. In the early 2000s, Jupiter Europa Orbiter led by NASA and the Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter led by the ESA were proposed together as an Outer Planet Flagship Mission to Jupiter's icy moons called Europa Jupiter System Mission, with a planned launch in 2020. function fullHeightWidthIframe(){ It has a very thin atmosphere, composed primarily of oxygen. [61], An alternative hypothesis suggest that lenticulae are actually small areas of chaos and that the claimed pits, spots and domes are artefacts resulting from over-interpretation of early, low-resolution Galileo images. September 1996 Zentralkörper Jupiter: Eigenschaften des Orbits; Große Halbachse: 671.100 km Periapsis: 665.100 km Apoapsis: 677.100 km Exzentrizität: 0,009 Bahnneigung: 0,470° Umlaufzeit: 3,551181 d: Mittlere Orbitalgeschwindigkeit: 13,74 km/s $('body').css('overflow','hidden') [42], More ambitious ideas have been put forward including an impactor in combination with a thermal drill to search for biosignatures that might be frozen in the shallow subsurface. Europa has the smoothest surface of any known solid object in the Solar System. This "neutral cloud" has been detected by both the Cassini and Galileo spacecraft, and has a greater content (number of atoms and molecules) than the neutral cloud surrounding Jupiter's inner moon Io. [32] Research suggests that the tidal locking may not be full, as a non-synchronous rotation has been proposed: Europa spins faster than it orbits, or at least did so in the past. [66][67], The Galileo orbiter found that Europa has a weak magnetic moment, which is induced by the varying part of the Jovian magnetic field. Those four moons are likely about the same age as the rest of the solar system — about 4.5 billion years old. Scientists are almost certain that hidden beneath the icy surface of Europa is a salty-water ocean thought to contain twice as much water as Earth’s oceans combined. Europa is tidally locked, so the same side faces Jupiter at all times. So while Europa is only one-fourth the diameter of Earth, its ocean may contain twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans combined. [158] This suggested approach has not yet reached a formal conceptual planning stage. Observations with the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph of the Hubble Space Telescope, first described in 1995, revealed that Europa has a thin atmosphere composed mostly of molecular oxygen (O2),[112][113] and some water vapor. The reduced density at greater distances is likely due to temperature: denser, rocky and metal material condenses out first, close to Jupiter or the Sun, while lighter-weight icy material only condenses out at larger distances where it is colder. } Europa may be the most promising place in our solar system to find present-day environments suitable for some form of life beyond Earth. Science Writer: It included the "Galileo Europa Mission" and "Galileo Millennium Mission", with numerous close flybys of Europa. Distance from Jupiter also determines how much tidal heating the Galilean satellites experience — Io, closest to Jupiter, is heated so much that it is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, and it likely long ago drove off any water it had when it formed. › Download Options. Water Vapor Was Just Found on Europa, More Evidence There's Liquid Water Beneath All that Ice. [60], One hypothesis states that these lenticulae were formed by diapirs of warm ice rising up through the colder ice of the outer crust, much like magma chambers in Earth's crust. ", Tips for photographing the sky during December's conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. Bill Dunford, A 3D model of Jupiter's moon Europa, an icy moon with a hidden subsurface ocean. These “extremophile” life forms give scientists clues about how life may be able to survive beneath Europa’s ice shell. [119] Solar ultraviolet radiation and charged particles (ions and electrons) from the Jovian magnetospheric environment collide with Europa's icy surface, splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen constituents. [18][100][101] It has been suggested that if they exist, they are episodic[102] and likely to appear when Europa is at its farthest point from Jupiter, in agreement with tidal force modeling predictions. Scientists could then study the material’s composition to determine whether Europa’s ocean might be hospitable for some form of life. toggleFullscreenMessage() Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is primarily made of silicate rock and has a water-ice crust[13] and probably an iron–nickel core. Astrobiologists — scientists who study the origin, evolution and future of life in the universe — believe Europa has abundant water and the right chemical elements, but an energy source on Europa has been difficult to confirm. [38] This layer is likely to be a salty liquid-water ocean. This surface composition may hold clues to the moon's potential as a habitable world. This may be important in determining if Europa could be habitable. Experiments and ice modeling published in 2016, indicate that tidal flexing dissipation can generate one order of magnitude more heat in Europa's ice than scientists had previously assumed. [90] Depending on the amount of tilt, the heat generated by the ocean flow could be 100 to thousands of times greater than the heat generated by the flexing of Europa's rocky core in response to gravitational pull from Jupiter and the other moons circling that planet. So if we replaced our Moon with Europa, it would appear roughly the same size in the sky as our Moon does, but brighter — much, much brighter. [48] There is currently no full scientific consensus among the sometimes contradictory explanations for the surface features of Europa. [162] In 2015, scientists announced that salt from a subsurface ocean may likely be coating some geological features on Europa, suggesting that the ocean is interacting with the seafloor. … console.log("Toggling fullscreen", $('.gltf_viewer').length) This may be important in determining whether Europa could be habitable. However, only the youngest of Europa's fractures conform to the predicted pattern; other fractures appear to occur at increasingly different orientations the older they are. [165] Life on Europa could exist clustered around hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, or below the ocean floor, where endoliths are known to inhabit on Earth. }) Europa orbits Jupiter at about 417,000 miles (671,000 kilometers) from the planet, which itself orbits the Sun at a distance of roughly 500 million miles (780 m… Unlike Earth, however, Europa’s ocean lies below a shell of ice probably 10 to 15 miles (15 to 25 kilometers) thick and has an estimated depth of 40 to 100 miles (60 to 150 kilometers). Previously, NASA’s Voyager and Galileo spacecraft performed flybys of Europa, which led scientists to discover that the moon has a salty liquid water ocean beneath an icy shell. Because of this, there is a sub-Jovian point on Europa's surface, from which Jupiter would appear to hang directly overhead. Europa's prime meridian is a line passing through this point. But in recent years Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, Europa, has emerged as a promising extraterrestrial nursery. Another concept was Ice Clipper,[148] which would have used an impactor similar to the Deep Impact mission—it would make a controlled crash into the surface of Europa, generating a plume of debris that would then be collected by a small spacecraft flying through the plume. Water on Europa—with a Pinch of Salt. [49], The radiation level at the surface of Europa is equivalent to a dose of about 5400 mSv (540 rem) per day,[50] an amount of radiation that would cause severe illness or death in human beings exposed for a single day. Instrument payload could include a radio subsystem, laser altimeter, magnetometer, Langmuir probe, and a mapping camera. These intriguing findings led to a strong sense of anticipation for the Galileo mission, which launched in 1989 and entered orbit around Jupiter in 1995. Recent magnetic-field data from the Galileo orbiter showed that Europa has an induced magnetic field through interaction with Jupiter's, which suggests the presence of a subsurface conductive layer. [132], In 2011, a Europa mission was recommended by the U.S. Planetary Science Decadal Survey. This could be explained if Europa's surface rotates slightly faster than its interior, an effect that is possible due to the subsurface ocean mechanically decoupling Europa's surface from its rocky mantle and the effects of Jupiter's gravity tugging on Europa's outer ice crust. "Galileo Spacecraft Finds Europa has Atmosphere", The Journey to Jupiter: Extended Tours – GEM and the Millennium Mission, "Projects: Europa Mission Campaign; Campaign Update: 2007 Budget Proposal", "Lean U.S. missions to Mars, Jupiter moon recommended", "NASA gets some funding for Mars 2020 rover in federal spending bill", "JPL's Mars 2020 rover benefits from spending bill", "NASA's Europa Mission Begins with Selection of Science Instruments", "Future spacecraft landing on Jupiter's moon Europa may have to navigate jagged blades of ice", "Jagged ice spikes cover Jupiter's moon Europa, study suggests", "Small RPS-Enabled Europa Lander Mission", "NASA and ESA Prioritize Outer Planet Missions", "Planetary protection for a Europa surface sample return: The Ice Clipper mission", Abelson & Shirley – Small RPS-Enabled Europa Lander Mission (2005), "Latest Galileo Data Further Suggest Europa Has Liquid Ocean", "Alternative energy sources could support life on Europa", "Bacterial explanation for Europa's rosy glow", "Europa's Ocean May Have An Earthlike Chemical Balance", "NASA Aiming for Multiple Missions to Jupiter Moon Europa", NASA – Mapping the Chemistry Needed for Life at Europa, "Clay-Like Minerals Found on Icy Crust of Europa", "Life Could Have Hitched a Ride to Outer Planet Moons", Preventing Forward Contamination of Europa, Images of Europa at JPL's Planetary Photojournal, Paul Schenk's 3D images and flyover videos of Europa and other outer Solar System satellites, Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence, Gauss's Pythagorean right triangle proposal, Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact, List of microorganisms tested in outer space, Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), Habitability of K-type main-sequence star systems, Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability, Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets, European Astrobiology Network Association, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Europa_(moon)&oldid=1011213744, CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2021, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing explicitly cited English-language text, Self-contradictory articles from May 2017, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat-VIAF identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 9 March 2021, at 17:33. A Nasa probe that explored Jupiter’s moon Europa flew through a giant plume of water vapour that erupted from the icy surface and reached a hundred miles high, according to … Based on Europa's icy composition, scientists think the most likely material to create this magnetic signature is a global ocean of salty water, and this magnetic field result is still the best evidence we have for the existence of an ocean on Europa. ", This site is maintained by the Planetary Science Communications team at. In addition to Earth-bound telescope observations, Europa has been examined by a succession of space-probe flybys, the first occurring in the early 1970s. In order to generate colored tholins on Europa there must be a source of materials (carbon, nitrogen, and water) and a source of energy to make the reactions occur. Its surface is striated by cracks and streaks, but craters are relatively few. In late 2008, it was suggested Jupiter may keep Europa's oceans warm by generating large planetary tidal waves on Europa because of its small but non-zero obliquity. [23] NASA's planned Europa Clipper should be launched in 2025. The images caused many scientists to speculate about the possibility of a liquid ocean underneath. Social Media Lead: Schaber (1982) "Geology of Europa", in David Morrison, ed., Schenk, Paul M.; Chapman, Clark R.; Zahnle, Kevin; and Moore, Jeffrey M. (2004), Ringwald, Frederick A. "encoding": [{"@type":"MediaObject","contentUrl":"https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/resources/gltf_files/2388_Europa_1_3138.glb","encodingFormat":"model/gltf+json"},{"@type":"MediaObject","contentUrl":"https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/resources/usdz_files/2388_Europa_1_3138.usdz","encodingFormat":"model/vnd.usdz+zip"}] Much like Earth’s seas, the subsurface ocean of this icy moon of Jupiter contains sodium chloride, the main ingredient of table salt Jupiter’s equator (and the orbital plane of its moons) are tilted with respect to Jupiter’s orbital path around the Sun by only 3 degrees (Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees). However, it has not yet been determined when this hypothesized shift in the spin axis might have occurred. [55] Comparisons of Voyager and Galileo spacecraft photos serve to put an upper limit on this hypothetical slippage. console.log("received message", event) Like our planet, Europa is thought to have an iron core, a rocky mantle and an ocean of salty water. [69] The best evidence for the thick-ice model is a study of Europa's large craters. Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of". Because of the distance, sunlight is about 25 times fainter at Jupiter and Europa than at Earth. [35], Europa is slightly smaller than the Moon. The field strength at the magnetic equator (about 120 nT) created by this magnetic moment is about one-sixth the strength of Ganymede's field and six times the value of Callisto's. This is due to a lack of substantial energy for organisms to thrive off of, unlike proposed hydrothermal vents on the subsurface ocean floor.[110][111]. They focus on our star, but three of NASA’s Sun-watching spacecraft have also captured unique views of the planets. fullHeightWidthIframe() The Hubble image includes a new storm brewing on Jupiter, and a cousin of the famous Great Red Spot region gearing up to change color. } else { The team measured the vapor using a spectrograph at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii that measures the chemical composition of planetary atmospheres through the infrared light they emit or absorb. NASA Scientists Confirm Water Vapor on Europa On the left is a view of Europa taken from 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) away on March 2, 1979 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Director, NASA Planetary Science Division: [46][47] Europa's icy crust has an albedo (light reflectivity) of 0.64, one of the highest of all moons. The following day, 8 January 1610 (used as the discovery date for Europa by the IAU), Io and Europa were seen for the first time as separate bodies during Galileo's observations of the Jupiter system. Some of Juno's latest findings touch on "hot spots" in the planet's atmosphere. Starting in 1995, the Galileo space probe orbited Jupiter for eight years, until 2003, and provided the most detailed examination of the Galilean moons to date. setTimeout(function(){ Even if Europa isn’t ejecting free samples into space, a 2018 study concluded that samples of Europa’s ocean could get frozen into the base of the moon’s ice shell, where the ice makes contact with the ocean. The first reported observation of Io and Europa was made by Galileo on 7 January 1610 using a 20×-magnification refracting telescope at the University of Padua. In 1892, the discovery of Amalthea, whose orbit lay closer to Jupiter than those of the Galilean moons, pushed Europa to the third position. Size: Europa is 1,900 miles (3,100 km) in diameter, making it smaller than Earth's moon, but larger than Pluto. "name": "Europa 3D Model", Unlike the oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, Europa's is not of biological origin. What makes Jupiter's moon Europa so alluring is the possibility that it may possess all the ingredients necessary for life. Unique Solar System Views from Sun-Watching Spacecraft, NASA's Juno Mission Expands Into the Future, The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, How to Photograph the Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, NASA's Juno Spacecraft Updates Quarter-Century Jupiter Mystery, Potential Plumes on Europa Could Come From Water in the Crust, Europa Glows: Radiation Does a Bright Number on Jupiter's Moon, October 2020 - Part II: The Next Full Moon is a Halloween Hunter's Moon and "Micro" Moon, Juno Data Indicates 'Sprites' or 'Elves' Frolic in Jupiter's Atmosphere, October 2020: The Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon, Cyclones of Color at Jupiter's North Pole, Hubble Captures Crisp New Portrait of Jupiter's Storms, 'Shallow Lightning' and 'Mushballs' Reveal Ammonia to Juno Scientists. [145] In 2009 it was given priority over Titan Saturn System Mission. "image": "https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/resources/list_images/2388_europa_th.jpg", Such plume activity could help researchers in a search for life from the subsurface Europan ocean without having to land on the moon. [91] Europa's seafloor could be heated by the moon's constant flexing, driving hydrothermal activity similar to undersea volcanoes in Earth's oceans.[87]. With an orbital eccentricity of only 0.009, the orbit itself is nearly circular, and the orbital inclination relative to Jupiter's equatorial plane is small, at 0.470°. Europa orbits Jupiter every 3.5 days and is locked by gravity to Jupiter, so the same hemisphere of the moon always faces the planet. [24], Europa, along with Jupiter's three other large moons, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto, was discovered by Galileo Galilei on 8 January 1610,[1] and possibly independently by Simon Marius. Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa’s water-ice surface is crisscrossed by long, linear fractures, cracks, ridges, and bands. The Moon will appear full from Wednesday morning through Saturday morning. So if we replaced our Moon with Europa, it would appear roughly the same size in the sky as our Moon does, but brighter — much, much brighter. [71] This leads to a volume of Europa's oceans of 3 × 1018 m3, between two or three times the volume of Earth's oceans. Cyclones at the north pole of Jupiter appear as swirls of striking colors in this extreme false color rendering of an image from NASA’s Juno mission. As the ice shell distorts and flexes from tidal forces, warmer and less-dense ice would rise, carrying the ocean samples to the surface where a spacecraft could analyze it remotely, using infrared and ultraviolet instruments, among others. Jupiter's volcanically active moon Io casts its shadow on the planet in this dramatic image from NASA's Juno spacecraft. var $full = $('.gltf_viewer.full'); The effect is more than just a cool visual. A 3D model of Jupiter's moon Europa, an icy moon with a hidden subsurface ocean. [79], Another hypothesis for the colored regions is that they are composed of abiotic organic compounds collectively called tholins. Streaks of reddish-brown color highlight cracks in Europa’s outer layer of ice. Light from the Sun takes about 45 minutes to reach Europa. Galileo revealed strange pits and domes that suggest Europa’s ice layer could be slowly churning, or convecting (cooler, denser ice sinks, while warmer less-dense ice rises) due to heat from below. However, in that observation, Galileo could not separate Io and Europa due to the low magnification of his telescope, so that the two were recorded as a single point of light. [75] The existence of the induced moment requires a layer of a highly electrically conductive material in Europa's interior. It is also the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System. [68] The most dramatic example is "chaos terrain", a common feature on Europa's surface that some interpret as a region where the subsurface ocean has melted through the icy crust. [51] Note: above calculations were made for a day on Earth (24h). Along Europa's many fractures, and in splotchy patterns across its surface, is a reddish-brown material whose composition is not known for certain, but likely contains salts and sulfur compounds that have been mixed with the water ice and modified by radiation. [169] The presence of the minerals may have been the result of a collision with an asteroid or comet. It orbits Jupiter at a distance of about 671,000 km (417,000 miles). [1], Europa is the namesake of Europa, daughter of the king of Tyre, a Phoenician noblewoman in Greek mythology. Alternatively, it could exist clinging to the lower surface of Europa's ice layer, much like algae and bacteria in Earth's polar regions, or float freely in Europa's ocean.