Europa ice might make more heat than thought

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Europa’s heaving ice might make more heat than scientists thought

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [brown University] - Jupiter's moon Europa is under a constant gravitational assault. As it orbits, Europa's icy surface heaves and falls with the pull of Jupiter's gravity, creating enough heat, scientists think, to support a global ocean beneath the moon's solid shell.

Now, experiments by geoscientists from Brown and Columbia universities suggest that this process, called tidal dissipation, could create far more heat in Europa&'s ice than scientists had previously assumed. The work could ultimately help researchers to better estimate the thickness of moon's outer shell.

The work is published in the June 1 issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

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