Europa's icy shell hides a vast ocean
Jupiter's moon Europa harbors a global subsurface ocean, potentially twice Earth's water volume, sparking hopes for alien life beneath its icy crust.
Beneath Europa's smooth, icy surface lies a subsurface ocean, believed to hold more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. This hidden world was first hinted at by the Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s, detecting a magnetic field explained by salty water. Jupiter's immense gravity flexes the moon, creating heat that keeps this ocean liquid and drives geological activity. This ocean is thought to be in contact with a rocky seafloor, potentially offering the chemical energy and nutrients necessary for life. Plumes of water vapor occasionally erupt from the surface, offering a tantalizing way to sample the ocean without drilling.