Images from the ESA (European Space Agency) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer ( JUICE) mission will offer similar information about Europa’s neighboring Jovian moon, Ganymede. Researchers will be able to apply the recent findings to understand whether quakes have moved ice and other surface materials and by how much. When it comes to Europa, the high-resolution images gathered by Europa Clipper will help scientists determine the power of past moonquakes. “Because of that moon’s small gravity, quakes on tiny Enceladus could be large enough to fling icy debris right off the surface and into space like a wet dog shaking itself off,” Pappalardo said. “It was surprising to find out more about how powerful moonquakes could be and that it could be simple for them to move debris downslope,” said co-author Robert Pappalardo, project scientist of Europa Clipper at JPL, which manages the mission.Įspecially surprising were the modeling results for tectonic activity and quakes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, a body that has less than 3% of the surface area of Europa and about 1/650 that of Earth. The mission has a sophisticated payload of nine science instruments to determine if Europa, which scientists believe contains a deep internal ocean beneath an outer ice shell, has conditions that could be suitable for life. After reaching Jupiter in 2030, the spacecraft will orbit the gas giant and conduct about 50 flybys of Europa. NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission, bound for Jupiter’s moon Europa in 2024, will give the research a significant boost, providing imagery and other science data. “This helps us understand how landslides might be shaping moon surfaces over time.”Īnother image of Jupiter’s moon Europa captured in the 1990s by NASA’s Galileo shows possible fault scarps (like those found on Earth when tectonic activity breaks the crust) adjacent to smooth areas that may have been produced by landslides.
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We’ve estimated the size of moonquakes and how big the landslides could be,” said lead author Mackenzie Mills, a graduate student at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who conducted the work during a series of summer internships at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We found the surface shaking from moonquakes would be enough to cause surface material to rush downhill in landslides. By applying the measurements to seismic models, they estimated the power of past moonquakes and found they could be strong enough to lift debris that then falls downhill, where it spreads out, smoothing the landscape. Scientists measured the dimensions of the steep ridges, which are believed to be tectonic fault scarps (like those on Earth) – steep slopes caused when the surface breaks along a fault line and one side drops. But how that process works when the surface temperatures are so cold and inhospitable to fluids has remained a mystery.Ī simple explanation outlined in the study doesn’t involve liquid on the surface. Scientists have theorized that these spots result from liquid that flows out of icy volcanoes. On the surfaces of icy moons such as Europa, Ganymede, and Enceladus, it’s common to see steep ridges surrounded by relatively flat, smooth areas. The smooth slopes and nearby rubble may have been produced by landslides.
It shows the kind of features studied by scientists who modeled how moonquakes may trigger landslides. This view of Jupiter’s moon Europa was captured in the 1990s by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft.
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