Is there life on Europa? 🔭 New research comparing Jupiter's moon to Greenland suggests there could be.
This NASA file composite image shows the Jovian system, including the edge of Jupiter with its Great Red Spot, and Jupiter's four largest moons, known as the Galilean satellites. From left to right, the moons shown are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
. His research group, which studies both Europa and Earth’s ice sheets using radar, discovered similar features on the surface of Greenland.“If the same process covers the formation of the double ridges on Europa, then there would be pockets of water underneath these ridges all over Europa,” Schroeder says, “suggesting that water may be much more abundant in the middle of the ice shelf than we would have thought.
“Forming these ridges brings water closer to the surface, and that increases the chance that you'll have an opportunity for exchange to get those chemicals into the water,” Schroeder says. “That’s hopeful news for that to be a potentially habitable piece of water.”