Europa Subsurface Ocean |
Europa Subsurface Ocean |
Nov 22 2005, 10:53 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
Regarding the very real possibility Europa harbors an ocean underneath the ice, I'm wondering whether there have been any estimates on how long such an ocean might have been sustained (I'm assuming it's still there today). Are we talking about the entire history of Europa, billions of years or a much more recent thing, only a few millions? I know Enceladus, which recently turned out to be much warmer inside than expected, could have been periodically heated, but not on very long timescales.
I'm primarily interested because of the habitability factor, obviously an ocean which freezes out every once and a while would not make for a good incubator to possible life. Also, supposedly all tidal heating on Europa would cease now, how long would it take for the subsurface to freeze out, that is, what are the thermal conductive properties of the surface ice? Admittedly, I haven't done much research on the subject and if the question was already asked before, I apologize. -------------------- |
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Apr 20 2006, 11:19 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
ERS-2 helps detect massive rivers under Antarctica
British scientists have discovered rivers the size of the Thames in London flowing hundreds of miles under the Antarctica ice shelf by examining small changes in elevation, observed by ESA’s ERS-2 satellite, in the surface of the oldest, thickest ice in the region, according to an article published in Nature this week. Full story at: http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMA94OFGLE_planet_0.html ICE WORLD - Antarctic Subglacial Rivers Are Found http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Antarcti..._Are_Found.html London (UPI) Apr 20, 2006 - British scientists say plans are to drill beneath the frozen wastes of the Antarctic, to investigate subglacial lakes, are being reviewed. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_* |
Apr 20 2006, 08:09 PM
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Guests |
What is incredible is that, seemingly, it is the geothermal flux which makes all this ice melt. This geothermal flux seems something weak at human scale, but at the scale of a continent, it is enough to feed a large river of melting ice.
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