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You have probably seen numerous photos and representations of Europe, its icy surface covered in reddish stripes. However, all those images are captured under the lighting of the sun. A new analysis from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) suggests that there might be something interesting on the dark side of the Jovian moon. The intense radiation bombarding Europa could make it glow in the dark, and that could help scientists learn more about the ice sheets on the moon and the ocean below.
Europa is slightly smaller than Earth’s moon, making it the smallest of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, all named after their discoverer, pioneering astronomer Galileo Galilei. Modern astronomers became increasingly interested in Europa when missions like Voyager revealed the cracked surface and dark lines. Scientists speculated that Europa had a liquid ocean below the surface, which was kept warm by warming tides due to Jupiter’s immense gravitational effects. Thick ice sheets hide the insides from direct analysis, but the new JPL study argues that the bright ice could offer some important clues.
Initially, the team was interested in studying the effects of high-energy radiation on organic compounds under the ice. To prove this, the JPL scientists built a unique instrument that was clearly named specifically to have a really cool acronym: the Ice Chamber for Europe’s High Energy Electron and Radiation Environment Testing (ICE-HEART). They took ICE-HEART to a high-energy electron beam facility where they could fire it with radiation similar to what you would find in space near Jupiter, but the effects of that radiation were unexpected.
Daytime side of Europe with visible lines.
ICE-HEART was designed to replicate the various types of ice present on the surface of Europa: sodium salts, magnesium salts, etc. During the experiments, the team noticed that the samples not only glowed, but also glowed in different spectra based on the composition of the salt. This could mean that the nightside of Europa looks like a slightly bright mosaic (see above), and the pattern could be noticeable. “If Europa weren’t under this radiation, it would look like our moon appears to us: dark on the shaded side,” says lead author Murthy Gudipati. “But because it is bombarded by radiation from Jupiter, it glows in the dark.”
The team speculates that water from the suspected underground ocean would seep to the surface over time. So the brightness on the surface can tell us what’s underneath, and we could characterize the surface just by looking at its light spectrum. “It’s not often that you’re in a lab and say, ‘We could find this when we get there,'” Gudipati said. “Usually it’s the other way around: you go there and find something and try to explain it in the lab. But our prediction goes back to a simple observation, and that’s what science is all about. ”
Our next chance to test this hypothesis in real life may come with the Europa Clipper mission, which will launch in 2024. After reaching orbit of Europa in 2030, it will perform multiple flybys giving it the opportunity to check for any possible brightness in dark effects.
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