By Irene Klotz; Discovery News
11/16/2011 2:35 PM ET
MSNBC
New research shows that the jumbled ice blocks crowning the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa are signs of large liquid lakes below, a key finding in the search for places where life might exist beyond Earth.
Drawing from studies of underground volcanoes in Iceland and Antarctica, scientists ran computer models to see if the chaotic formations on Europa's surface could be explained by the same geologic processes seen on Earth.
"We looked at melt underneath the ice, and the fracture and collapse of ice shelves," Britney Schmidt, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics, told Discovery News.
...The study provides "the best model so far" for the ice formations on Europa, Paul Schenk, a staff scientist with the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, wrote in an email to Discovery News.
"If we go back with penetrating radar instruments we should be able to see into the ice shell, determine the stratigraphy of the layers in the shell and verify which model works best," Schenk said.
Europa, which is slightly smaller than Earth's moon, is believed to have a large ocean of salty water beneath its frozen crust.
"Europa has more water than all of Earth's oceans," planetary scientist Simon Kattenhorn, with the University of Idaho, told Discovery News.
While the ocean itself is of interest to scientists searching for life beyond Earth,...
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credit: Britney Schmidt/Dead Pixel VFX/Univ. of Texas at Austin & djxatlanta
Additional Resources:
[Photos] Moons of Jupiter
SCIENCE CHANNEL: Take a tour of Titan, Callisto & Europa
NEWS: Europa, Jupiter's Moon, Could Support Complex Life
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