14 DAY TRIAL // At the European Planetary Science Congress, held in Madrid, Spain, on September 25, researchers from the University of Nantes and the Charles University, in Prague, argued in front of colleagues that liquid water under the surface of the Jovian moon Europa only endures for short periods of time.
They say that the subsurface ocean only remains liquid for a few tens of thousands of years, which is a very brief period in astronomical terms. This suggests that future missions destined to study the mysterious moon will have to dig deeper than originally thought, if they want to find water.
“A global water ocean may be present, but relatively deep below the surface – around 25 to 50 km. There could be areas of liquid water at much shallower depths, say around 5 km, but these would only exist for a few tens of thousands of years before migrating downwards,” expert Klára Kalousová says.
Europa is one of the prime targets in the search for life elsewhere in the solar system. The Moon, Mars, the Saturnine moons Enceladus and Titan, and the Jovian moon Ganymede complete this list, Astrobiology Magazine reports.