Thank you, Bruce! I'm new to this list, too and was beginning to wonder if
it would be useful for the information I was looking for.
Regarding the nutrient balance in the top few meters of ice--do you have a
URL or a journal reference with information on that? I'd love to do some
more in-depth reading on it.
Best!
Deanna
> The trouble is that this group has already long since chewed all that over
> extremely thoroughly, throughout 1999 and 2000 (apparently before you got
> here) -- and we're simply running out of specifically Europa-related stuff
> to discuss. (Hopefully there will soon be some more of it, as I recently
> noted.) That's precisely why many of us have moved over to Jason Perry's
> "ISSDG" and "Jupiter List" chat groups, which deal with Solar System
> exploration in general.
>
> Regarding your questions: Europa's crust is solid ice and anywhere from
> several to several dozen km thick -- so we certainly don't need to worry
> about floating on the surface or drifting on ice floes. It has an
extremely
> faint trace of atmosphere -- only a few hundred-millionths as dense as
> Earth's -- and we have a good idea of most of the gases making it up. The
> core may or may not be hot enough to provide any volcanic vents at all on
> the floor of the subsurface ocean, but most of that floor is certainly
near
> 0 deg C, just like most of Earth's ocean floor. (Europa's tidal heating
> from Jupiter is only about 1/10 of Io's.) This still leaves a tremendous
> number of interesting questions about the place, of course -- with one of
> the most lively recent subjects being an increased feeling among
scientists
> that Jupiter's radiation may produce a disproportionate concentration of
> nutrients and other biologically useful chemicals in the TOP few meters of
> Europa's ice, and that these may both be slowly transported down into the
> underground ocean, or nourish microbes in local pockets of near-surface
> water within the ice. (This, in turn, would mean that a productive search
> for Europan life may not have to dig nearly as far down into the ice as
the
> originaly Cryobot would have -- but then, there was some feeling along
those
> lines anyway, since it's always seemed likely that long-dead but extremely
> well-preserved Europan microbes may be preserved in the ice even near its
> top.)
>
> Bruce Moomaw
>
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