Model Source of Eruption tagged posts

Researchers Model Source of Eruption on Jupiter’s moon Europa

This artist’s conception of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa shows a hypothesized cryovolcanic eruption, in which briny water from within the icy shell blasts into space. A new model of this process on Europa may also explain plumes on other icy bodies. (Image credit: Justice Blaine Wainwright)

On Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, powerful eruptions may spew into space, raising questions among hopeful astrobiologists on Earth: What would blast out from miles-high plumes? Could they contain signs of extraterrestrial life? And where in Europa would they originate? A new explanation now points to a source closer to the frozen surface than might be expected.

Rather than originating from deep within Europa’s oceans, some eruptions may originate from water pockets embedded in the icy shell itself, ...

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