Outer Solar System Real Estate? Since the late 1970s an ocean, melted via tidal heating, has been suspected beneath the icy crust of Europa, Jupiters smallest Galilean Moon. Recent UV telescopic observations suggest eruptions of vapour, just like the photographed eruptions of Saturns moon Enceladus. However Europa also offers the tantalising prospect of habitable cavern lakes under the ice, due to the radiolysis created oxygen in the surficial ice, which is then subducted via solid-state convection. Regions of jumbled terrain are suggestive of large sub-surface lakes, which should form large caverns due to the higher density of liquid water compared to ice. As nature abhors a vacuum, the caverns would be filled with whatever gases are available, drawn out of the ice. Oxygen mostly! If such gas-filled caverns exist - as the vapour plumes may suggest - then perhaps we have a possible target for colonization, or at least new sites for astrobiological exploration. I am a few planks out over the abyss of the unknown, but this is an idea worth exploring further.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Apr 2014 01:52:37 +0000
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