Icy ocean worlds offer chances to find life

Mann, Adam

doi:10.1073/pnas.1703361114

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Internal liquid water beneath the ice shells of ocean worlds, including Europa, Enceladus, and Titan could be suitable for life (e.g. Mann, 2017). The differing input materials, thermal histories, and geophysical properties of these moons (e.g.…”

Section: The Need For Improved Geochemical Framework To Ocean Worldsmentioning

confidence: 99%

DEWPython: A Python Implementation of the Deep Earth Water Model

Chan¹,

Daswani²

2021

Goldschmidt2021 Abstracts

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Section: The Need For Improved Geochemical Framework To Ocean Worldsmentioning

confidence: 99%

DEWPython: A Python Implementation of the Deep Earth Water Model

Chan¹,

Daswani²

2021

Goldschmidt2021 Abstracts

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“…Jupiter's moon, Europa, and Saturn's moon, Enceladus, are two of only a few moons in the solar system that bear the possibility of extraterrestrial life (e.g., Chyba and Phillips, 2001 , Pappalardo et al, 2013 ). Europa has a deep (∼100 km) ocean that underlies an icy shell, more than several kilometers deep (e.g., Cassen et al, 1979 , Carr et al, 1998 , Pappalardo et al, 1998 , Kivelson et al, 2000 , Hussmann et al, 2002 , O'Brien et al, 2002 , Tobie et al, 2003 , Schenk and Pappalardo, 2004 , Zhu et al, 2017 ), where chemical interactions at the rocky bottom of the ocean may enable the existence of a habitable environment (e.g., Chyba and Phillips, 2001 , Chyba and Phillips, 2002 , Greenberg, 2010 , Mann, 2017 ). The Voyager and Galileo (and to a lesser extent, the Cassini-Huygens and New Horizons) spacecrafts/missions discovered many interesting features of Europa including chaos terrains ( Schmidt et al, 2011 , Walker and Schmidt, 2015 ) and craters ( Lucchitta and Soderblom, 1982 , Moore et al, 1998 , Greeley et al, 2000 , Silber and Johnson, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The surface temperature of Europa

Ashkenazy

2019

Heliyon

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Previous estimates of the annual mean surface temperature of Jupiter's moon, Europa, neglected the effect of the eccentricity of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, the effect of the emissivity and heat capacity of Europa's ice, the effect of the eclipse of Europa (i.e., the relative time that Europa is within the shadow of Jupiter), the effect of Jupiter's radiation, and the effect of Europa's internal heating. Other studies concentrated on the diurnal cycle but neglected some of the above factors. In addition, to our knowledge, the seasonal cycle of the surface temperature of Europa was not estimated. Here we systematically estimate the diurnal, seasonal and annual mean surface temperature of Europa, when Europa's obliquity, emissivity, heat capacity, and eclipse, as well as Jupiter's radiation, internal heating, and eccentricity, are all taken into account. For a typical internal heating rate of 0.05 , the equator, pole, and the global and mean annual mean surface temperatures are 96 K, 46 K, and 90 K, respectively. We found that the temperature at the high latitudes is significantly affected by the internal heating, especially during the winter solstice, suggesting that measurements of high latitude surface temperatures can be used to constrain the internal heating. We also estimate the incoming solar radiation to Enceladus, the moon of Saturn.

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“…It will be visited by the orbiting Europa Clipper mission next decade, and plans are in the works for a lander sometime afterward. Finally, there is Saturn's tiny geyser-spewing moon Enceladusspacecraft could fly through a spout and investigate a sample from its global ocean in detail (6).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%