Europa's ice shell thickness variations as constrained by Juno results — E8 Intelligence Research
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: At Jupiter's ocean moon, Europa, the thickness of the overlying ice shell has been debated since the Galileo mission. The ice shell thickness can constrain formation models of Europa's enigmatic surface features and has implications for material exchange between the ocean and surface. Exchange processes can facilitate the development of habitats in Europa's interior and affects whether measurements of surface composition can be used to probe the ocean and its potential ecosystem. Recently, model fits to measurements from the Juno microwave radiometer provided new constraints on Europa's ice shell thickness, finding an average thickness over the region of observation of 29 ± 10 km. Here, we use the Juno results to narrow the range of plausible basal heat fluxes -- a key free parameter in thermal models of ice shell thickness -- to generate updated maps of globally-varying ice shell thickness and surface heat flux for Europa that are consistent with the Juno interpretation. We also explo Author: Andrew Stewart Caldin, Independent Researcher, UK. Part of the E8 Intelligence Research series. Platform: e8intelligence.com
Author: Caldin, Andrew Stewart
Language: English
Topic: Astro and Planetary Science
Subfield: Space and Planetary Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225809337
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