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12 May 2020
New evidence of watery plumes on Jupiter’s moon Europa
Scientists are keen to explore beneath Europa’s thick blanket of ice, and they can do so indirectly by hunting for evidence of activity emanating from below. A new study published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, did exactly this.
5 July 2016
Odd behavior of Jovian moon dust could inform future space missions, search for life
New research into the movements of dust around Jupiter’s four largest moons could help scientists searching for life in our solar system, according to a new study. This moon dust around Jupiter could give scientists clues about the composition of the surface of its satellites.
14 October 2015
New research shows impacts from comets or asteroids could have created Europa’s chaos terrain
What began as Williams College students requesting a new course on planets and moons nearly 12 years ago has now culminated in a new research paper showing that impactors, such as comets or asteroids, can penetrate the frozen surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Since 2004, undergraduate students led by Rónadh Cox, professor of geoscience, have studied the ice-covered surface of Europa, trying to understand the origins of its chaos terrain: areas that look like crustal breaches, with icebergs embedded in frozen slush.
22 December 2014
Veteran geophysical tool preps for new horizons at Europa
Jupiter’s moon Europa has tantalized scientists with its potential for harboring life ever since Galileo first spotted the icy satellite in 1610. If living matter is bubbling anywhere in our solar system, they suspect, it would be below the moon’s icy shell, where a presumed ocean of salty water meets a mineral-rich interior. But because scientists can’t peer beneath the ice, they must rely on data beamed back by passing spacecraft. A proposed NASA mission called Europa Clipper could be sent to the moon in the next decade—and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA want their instrument to be onboard.
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.