Taste of the Ocean on Europa’s Surface

Source: NASA

Based on new evidence from Jupiter’s moon Europa, astronomers hypothesize that chloride salts bubble up from the icy moon’s global liquid ocean and reach the frozen surface where they are bombarded with sulfur from volcanoes on Jupiter’s innermost large moon Io. The new findings propose answers to questions that have been debated since the days of NASA’s Voyager and Galileo missions. This illustration of Europa (foreground), Jupiter (right) and Io (middle) is an artist’s concept.

An occultation of Io by Europa

A serendipitous movie of an occultation of Io by its neighboring moon Europa when the team re-observed Io on the night of March 7, 2015 for a follow up to the work done for the published study. Europa happened to pass in front of Io as observed from Earth. Loki is the bright volcano on the left and Pele the other one on the lower right. Europa appears dark because the water ice on its surface absorbs the incident sunlight at the wavelength used. 

LBTO