Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons, may be capable of supporting life because its icy surface likely hides a deep, salty ocean. Europa’s ocean is also in direct contact with the rocks of its mantle, and interactions between rocks, water and ice could provide the energy necessary for life.
DG Lemasquerier and her colleagues studied how warming of the European mantle could stimulate ocean circulation beneath the icy crust. Researchers modeled Europa’s ocean to better understand how heating phenomena from the Moon’s depths can affect the thickness of its icy surface. The study is published in the journal AGU progress.
Mantle heat is one of the drivers of ocean circulation over Europa, and this warming comes in two forms. Radiogenic warming is caused by the decay of radioactive material in the mantle, and tidal heating is caused by the deformation that Europa experiences as it orbits Jupiter and experiences its strong gravitational pull. Tidal warming is uneven; it is higher at the poles of Europa and lower at points on the moon opposite and facing Jupiter.
Using simplified idealized modeling that did not account for salinity and ocean-ice feedbacks, the researchers examined how heat might be transferred from Europa’s seafloor, across its ocean, and down to its icy shell. They found that if tidal heating was dominant in the mantle, latitudinal variations in heat flux from the bottom would be transferred upward through the ocean and remain essentially the same at the ice-ocean boundary, affecting the thickness of the ice and leaving it thinner at the poles.
However, if radiogenic heating is the dominant type of heating in the mantle, then the ocean would have a relatively small impact on ice thickness. The 2024 Europa Clipper mission could help confirm these model results and offer new insights into the link between warming of Europa’s mantle, ocean circulation and the thickness of its icy crust.
More information:
DG Lemasquerier et al, Europa’s Ocean Translates Interior Tidal Heating Patterns to the Ice-Ocean Border, AGU progress (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2023AV000994
Provided by the American Geophysical Union
This story is republished courtesy of Eos, hosted by the American Geophysical Union. Read the original story here.
Quote: Scientists study how heat increases in Europa’s ocean (January 11, 2024) retrieved January 11, 2024 from
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from fair use for private study or research purposes, no part may be reproduced without written permission. The content is provided for information only.
