Red Patches on Europa’s Surface Provide Additional Evidence for Subsurface Ocean

Reddish spots on the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon
Europa may indicate pockets of warmer ice rising from
below. This upwelling could provide an elevator ride to the
surface for material in an ocean beneath the ice, say
scientists studying data from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft.

A Galileo color image of the spots, which are called
by the Latin term for freckles, “lenticulae,” is being
presented at a conference this week by Colorado researchers
and is available online from NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory at
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03878 .

“Europa acts like a planetary lava lamp, carrying
material from near the surface down to the ocean, and, if
they exist, potentially transporting organisms up toward
the surface,” said Dr. Robert Pappalardo, a planetary
scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The Galileo spacecraft, orbiting Jupiter since 1995,
has produced strong evidence that Europa has a deep ocean
of melted saltwater underneath a surface layer of ice.
Information about the mission and its discoveries is online
at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. During the annual
meeting of the Geological Society of America, Oct. 27
through Oct. 30 in Denver, scientists are discussing
interpretations of Europa data and proposals for future
exploration of that world. A University of Colorado press
release about presentations there by Pappalardo and
colleagues is online at
http://www.colorado.edu/NewsServices/NewsReleases/2002/2054.html .

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages
Galileo for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington,
D.C. For more about Galileo, visit
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov .