The uncanny resemblance between features on Europa's frozen surface and a landform in Greenland that sits atop a sizable pocket of water are providing intriguing new indications that this moon of Jupiter may be capable of harboring life.
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The uncanny resemblance between features on Europa's frozen surface and a landform in Greenland that sits atop a sizable pocket of water are providing intriguing new indications that this moon of Jupiter may be capable of harboring life.
The uncanny resemblance between features on Europ a's frozen surface and a landform in Greenland that sits atop a sizable pocket of water are providing intriguing new indications that this moon of Jupiter may be capable of harboring life.
Double ridges are linear, with two peaks and a central trough between them.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comRegister"If you sliced through one and looked at the cross section, it would look a bit like the capital letter 'M,'" said Stanford University geophysicist Riley Culberg, lead author of the study published in the journal
Nature Communications.Radar data showed that refreezing of liquid subsurface water drove the formation of Greenland's double ridge. If Europa's features form the same way, this could signal the presence of copious amounts of liquid water - a key ingredient for life - near the surface of this Jovian moon's thick outer ice shell.
In the search for extraterrestrial life, Europa has attracted attention as one of the locales in our solar system that may be habitable, perhaps by microbes, owing to a global saltwater ocean detected deep beneath its ice shell. Innumerable water pockets closer to the surface would represent a second potential habitat for organisms. headtopics.com
(Source: Reuters)
