Europa's creeping ice might make far more heat than thought

As Europa — the sixth-closest moon of Jupiter and the smallest of its four Galilean satellites — orbits, its icy surface heaves and falls with the pull of Jupiter’s gravity, creating enough heat to support a subsurface ocean. Now, a new study suggests that this process, known as tidal dissipation, could create far more heat in the moon’s ice than planetary researchers had previously assumed.

http://www.sci-news.com/space/planetaryscience/europas-ice-more-heat-03790.html

Journal article: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X16300930

 

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Europa! One of the more interesting places within the solar system, along with Enceledes, Titon and Triton.

 

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Just a pity it's so damn radioactive.

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I understand the surface levels are something like 500 rem per day!! And NASA's internal guidance is to limit astronauts to no more than 100 rem over their life!

So if any (complex) life does exist in those salty oceans under the ice, maybe they can help us develop biological means of combatting long-term radiation exposure. No harm in dreaming.

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