Space and ocean scientists take a splash course in multidisciplinary science to chart our solar system’s ocean worlds.
Europa
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Europa’s Plate Tectonic Activity Is Unlike Earth’s
The moon of Jupiter has likely experienced intermittent, regional plate tectonic activity in the past, although the plates are currently dormant.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Zipping Up Data to Zap Them Back from an Icy Moon
NASA wants to send instruments to distant moons like Europa and Enceladus to search for life. But getting vital data back to Earth over limited bandwidth will take some impressive compression software.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Dynamics of Ocean Worlds Likely Controlled by Their Rotation
New simulations suggest that subsurface oceans on icy moons with small natural Rossby numbers may be dominated by rotational effects.
Posted inNews
Lipids from Europa’s Ocean Could Be Detectable on the Surface
A super salty spring in the Canadian Arctic provides insights key to detecting life on a distant ocean world.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
New Energetic Neutral Atom Emissions from Jupiter, Io, and Europa
The first Jovian off-equator Energetic Neutral Atom viewings reveal distinct emissions from Jupiter and the orbits of Io and Europa: Energetic particle injections surprisingly occur inside Io’s orbit.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Two Moons and a Magnetosphere
Decades of research have illuminated how Io and Europa shape—and are shaped by—Jupiter’s giant magnetosphere.
Posted inNews
Jupiter’s Galilean Moons May Have Formed Slowly
A new model is the first to simultaneously explain many of the moons’ characteristics, including their mass, orbits, and icy composition